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A Rock and a Hard Place: A Story about Poverty and Wishful Thinking

H. Bradford

3.11.19

I grew up poor. Of course, poor is relative, and to some degree, everyone was poor where I grew up in rural Minnesota. The median household income in Cromwell in 2016 was $26,094. In contrast, Duluth, a city about an hour away, has a median household income of $45,950. So, it is a poor area for this region. Against this backdrop, my family was poor, owing to the fact that only one of my parents regularly worked outside of the home for most of my childhood, my father’s employment was fraught with periods of layoffs and injury, and because my parents were very young when they had me (my mother was in high school). While I wasn’t the poorest of the poor and benefited from support from my grandparents, I grew up aware that we didn’t have the nicest home (a trailer in the woods), best toys, braces for my teeth, other families seemed to have more, and that finances stressed my parents out. I remember one winter when my father was laid off of work, we ate potatoes and eggs during January and February. I remember wanting things to be better for my parents. I remember, in about the first grade, wishing that Santa would bring us more money. As a child, I really didn’t have the tools to understand poverty, how it works, how to escape it, or that escape from poverty is atypical. In my immature mindset, poverty was something best escaped through some miraculous circumstance. For instance, Charlie Bucket escaped poverty by finding a golden ticket in his chocolate bar and surviving the maniacal factory trials of a mad capitalist by virtue of his….virtue. The Beverly Hillbillies escaped poverty by finding oil on their property. Following this theme, I was convinced that we would escape poverty by finding a valuable rock. This happened twice.

The swampy yard of my childhood featured at least two large rocks. I would climb on one of them, which was mossy and would have been a good location for a rock garden if it wasn’t set in a swamp or shade. Another rock that captured my imagination was located inside the forest across from our driveway. This rock was also located in one of many swampy pools near our home which was ideal for finding frogs in the spring, but would dry up by summer. Something about that particular rock captured by imagination. It was gray and jagged. Like the other rock, it was large enough to sit and play on. Perhaps because it was deeper in the woods, surrounded by ferns and other prehistoric plants, half submerged in a vernal pool, I imagined it was associated with dinosaurs. I imagined that the rock had something to do with the extinction of the dinosaurs. It became obvious to my mind that it was in fact, a meteor. I knew, on a scientific level, that meteors are rare and valuable, so I decided that this was going to be our golden ticket out of poverty. On a superstitious level, whenever we saw a meteor streak across the sky, my mother told us to say “money, money, money” as fast as we could, until it disappeared and perhaps money would come our way. I was always disappointed that they never lasted long enough to say the incantation more than a few times, if any at all. Money certainly never came of it. In any event, I convinced my brother that it was a meteor. It probably isn’t hard to stretch the imagination that far, since it was a large rock in the middle of a forest. Obviously it got there somehow, so why not outer space? My mind was not geologically grounded enough to consider glaciers. My brother and I dragged my mother out to this meteor, convinced that it was going to make us some money. She followed us to the rock. Maybe she cautiously hoped that we had indeed stumbled upon something of value. Just like Antique Roadshow, undiscovered wealth was waiting to be found. I showed her the rock and explained the characteristics that clearly made it a meteor. It wasn’t. I don’t remember what happened after we brought her into the woods. But, we never became wealthy from it and eventually I forgot about the rock and stopped playing in the woods.

A random image of dinosaurs on a rock from FreePic

The second rock incident happened much later. I went on a road trip to Thunder Bay, Ontario with my grandmother, brother, and mother. I was about fourteen years old. On the way back, we stopped at a rest stop or overlook, and I saw a large, clay colored rock. I was convinced that this was an agate. I suppose traveling up the North Shore of Lake Superior I had agates on the brain. I convinced my brother that it was an agate. Although it was dull and reddish brown, I was sure that if we loaded it into the car, then cracked it open, it would split into two perfect agate geodes. The otherwise dull colored rock had a specks that glistened in the sun, which to me indicated that it was secretly an agate. This was around the time my parents divorced and we were moving on to a new life in a low income apartment, on food stamps, in a new single parent household in Isanti, MN. A magnificent agate would have been a huge help. My mother was reluctant, but once again I got my brother on board. We both convinced her to load the forty or fifty pound rock into our vehicle. After all, we couldn’t possibly leave this opportunity for wealth behind. It road around in our vehicle for months. Eventually, my mother asked a rock collector at the county fair about it. The expert scoffed at the idea that we would find such large agate. But, we didn’t know how agates formed or how they would have broken up into smaller pieces over time. I was disappointed that it was….just a rock. It was a rock and an unwanted passenger in the backseat of our car. I think we eventually rolled the rock onto the lawn of our low income apartment complex, which upset the management. The last I remember was seeing it rolled up against a tree by the parking lot. Did we get into trouble? Did they make us move it? Did they know it was our rock? I don’t know. I just know that once again, we pinned our hopes on a mineral miracle.

What I imagined we would find inside the rock….

I’ve been thinking about these stories lately. It seems foolish that I believed, on more than one occasion, that we could escape poverty by finding valuable rocks. But, these ideas are really no different than some of the other faulty thinking regarding poverty or social class. For one, the idea of discovering something valuable to escape poverty is a common narrative in society. I already mentioned Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Antique Roadshow, and Beverly Hillbillies. Any story involving hidden treasure similarly follows the notion that wealth is out there waiting to be found. Lottery tickets similarly create the notion that wealth is out there. It is just a matter of the right numbers at the right time….and SOMEONE has to win. Even if the odds are low, it COULD be you if you just participate. The Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes also reinforces the faulty thinking that wealth is something that can unexpectedly happen. Game shows also promote this idea, as contestants compete for money or prizes. Of course, some skill might be involved, but a person’s ability to solve word puzzles, guess the correct price, or answer trivia questions is generally not a surefire way to make it ahead in society. In another example, one of my favorite children’s stories was called Silly Simon, about a foolish young man who was abused by his mother and could never do anything right, until his silly antics caused a princess to laugh. He was awarded gold from a king for this feat. This teaches that wealth is something that can happen in just the right circumstances or with a not so useful skill-set that suddenly has value. Another common trope is the orphan who is adopted into wealth, such as Annie, Oliver Twist, or a low rated TV show that aired when I was a child called Rags to Riches. At least I never once imagined escaping poverty through adoption! I grew up in a world informed by Publishers Clearing House, scratch tickets, stories of orphans and treasures, game shows, etc. At the same time, never once did my pre-college formal education tackle the topic of causes of poverty. This is a disservice to children, who are often bullied for their social class. I remember my brother was once upset that a classmate of his (in Isanti) said that our family lived in the dumpster by the school. I remember a classmate (in Cambridge) picking on my family for using food stamps and another teasing me because my family didn’t own our own washing machine (which I hadn’t even considered a sign of poverty until teased for it. I liked going to the laundromat). If children are not raised to understand social class, then being poor is mysterious and easy to blame on lack of luck or some kind of flaw.

Even as I entered college, I really didn’t understand class. I felt embarrassed that everyone else seemed to have stories about going on vacations that involved sailing in Greece or backpacking in Europe. I didn’t want to talk about myself. (Of course, at this point in my life I have traveled a lot, but upon graduating high school I had never been on a plane and felt jealous when I met college students who had studied abroad in high school or went on elaborate family vacations. I felt less than them! That this was not a matter of money, but that I wasn’t “good enough” to have these opportunities. But, these feelings motivated me to prioritize travel). I felt ashamed that my parents were not doctors, professors, business owners, lawyers, or any of the other prestigious professions that other students’ parents seemed to have. I felt that there was something wrong with me and my family. I felt that I was inferior. That if I was smarter, more attractive, harder working, more talented, more outgoing, less strange, or any number of other qualities, that I too would have an exciting and successful life. So, rather than analyze the difference between myself and other students I met as a matter of socioeconomics, I felt that I was defective. Internalizing being poor as a flaw or a failure was just as faulty as believing that wealth could come from meteors (or lottery tickets, sweepstakes, game shows, etc.). Yet, this is more insidious and pervasive. It is something that I believe to some degree even to this day. Being poor….it did make me flawed! I have crooked teeth because we couldn’t afford braces. I have a crooked spine as well. We didn’t have access or an understanding of psychology, so some of these needs also went unmet or unknown. So, I am not the optimal person I might have been in other socioeconomic circumstances. Certainly, I am a passable person and everyone has flaws. Yet, for all of my passion for learning, all of my talent, hard work, or any number of positive attributes, I will never be “living my best life.” In parts, I am to blame. A scarcity mindset prevents me from taking too many risks or living too freely. I will never feel empowered to quit a job I don’t like or make major life changes because in the back of my mind, I know that there is a lot to lose and fear of going without.

Yeah, not really. But life is….okay.

The narrative of self-determination is perhaps the hardest one to overcome. I can rationally conclude that success does not come from meteors, agates, game shows, or lottery tickets. Yet, I have not quite abandoned the notion that with hard work, education, talent, risk taking, determination, etc. I should be able to accomplish my goals and dreams. This is the narrative that our educational systems socialize us to believe in the most, as in the context of capitalism, educational systems need to justify their own existence by promising that education can help us become self-actualized, successful people. So, this is why I find myself up against a rock and a hard place. This is also why I think we need to be careful about what kinds of stories we tell ourselves about class. We must abandon the language of “living the best the best life,” goal digging, girl bosses, slaying and narratives of self-made successes. This isn’t to argue that everyone should adopt “learned helpnessness” or the idea that nothing we do has an impact on our environment or life outcomes. Instead, I think that narratives about upward mobility or class should be tempered by socioeconomic realities rather than individual efforts. This itself is contested, as conclusions about upward mobility vary depending upon how this is measured and defined. For instance, the U.S. Treasury Department posits that upward mobility is a reality for low income Americans, who on average see their incomes rise over time as measured by tax returns. If one defines upward mobility as entering a new tax quintile, then yes, upward mobility is possible. Marxists define things more broadly, as class is about a relationship to production. A quintile increase in taxed income may not translate to increased access and control of capital. Because upward mobility is not operationalized by Marxists as increased status or income, social mobility is less common in socialist interpretations. In this broader view, capitalism itself is prone to instability and declining rates of profit over time, so income gains are never a given and always challenged by a profit motive that is inherently at odds with high or even stable standards of living for most workers. But, one does not need to be a Marxist to understand that life is limited by class, and compounding this, it is limited by gender, race, sexuality, ability, etc. It is also limited by job availability, unemployment trends, globalization, new technology, etc. You can work very hard, have many talents, educate yourself extensively, make all the right choices, and you can still end up working menial, unrewarding jobs in which you worry about retirement and live paycheck to paycheck.

It was foolish for me to think that we would find money in the form of a meteor or an agate. Even if we had, that money would not have sustained us for long. I had so much hope back then. But, of course, this is false hope and wishful thinking. My favorite quote is “We must prefer a real hell to an imaginary paradise” by Simone Weil. Of course, she was probably talking about some spiritual nonsense, but I have always interpreted it as it is better to think clearly without hope, than have false hope in ignorance. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of hope that most working people will have a windfall of wealth, much less live their lives without economic hardship and worry. There are no meteors, agates, winning lottery tickets, etc. to save us. Even education, hard work, innovation, talent, etc. are not tickets to a better life. A better life is secured through collective struggle, not individual efforts or accomplishments. It is class struggle that shortens the workday, promises pensions, provides health care, mandates paid leave, and all of the other benefits that ACTUALLY do improve lives and creates opportunities. Living our best lives is a function of the mass movements that seek to end war, protect the environment, provide public transportation, end police brutality, empower women, dismantle racism, etc. So, I do have some hope, or at least, a methodology for betterment.

Celebrating Minnesota Chickadees

H. Bradford

2/23/19

There are many Minnesota birds that I have never seen. Until early February, a Boreal chickadee was one of them. In previous winters, I made some efforts to find a Boreal chickadee at the Sax Zim bog. I would check e-bird and scope out the place where they were often seen (Admiral Road Feeder). No matter how long I waited, I never seemed to catch one. I listened to my bird call CD, trying to memorize their more nasal song so that if one was in the area, I would know. Finally, this year, at least according to e-bird, Boreal chickadees were recorded in larger numbers than the last two winters. So, in honor of FINALLY seeing a few of them, here are some chickadee facts to inspire others to celebrate and cherish Minnesota chickadees!

Chickadees are part of the Paridae family, which contains 55 species of birds that are found primarily in Eurasia, Africa, and North America and include birds such as titmice, tits, and chickadees (Otter, 2007). In Minnesota, there are three species of Paridae, which include Black-capped chickadees, Boreal chickadees, and Tufted titmice. Boreal chickadees and Black-capped chickadees are both members of the genus Poecille, whereas Tufted titmice are in the genus Baeolophus (Explore the habits of the breeding birds of Minnesota. n.d.). The members of the Paridae family arrived in North America from Asia 4 million years ago. The tufted titmouse traces its lineage to this earliest wave. A second wave of Paridae arrived in North America 3.5 million years ago and led to chickadees (Otter, 2007). Speciation was the result of isolation from glaciers and expanding desert grassland (Gelbart, 2016). Tufted titmice are found in southeastern Minnesota. Black capped chickadees are the most common Parid in Minnesota, ranging throughout the state with larger concentrations around Lake Superior. Finally, Boreal chickadees are uncommon in Minnesota according to the Minnesota Breeding Bird Atlas and can be found in the arrowhead region of Minnesota as well as the far north of the state. There are estimated to be 1.1 million breeding adult Black-capped chickadees in Minnesota, but the number of Boreal chickadees is unknown for lack of observations. Tufted titmice are also uncommon, with a breeding population of under 100 birds. However, due to climate change, winter bird feeding, and the maturation of deciduous forests, Tufted titmice populations in the state are increasing at an average of 1.08% per year. (Explore the habits of the breeding birds of Minnesota. n.d.). Because Tufted titmice are not found in my region and because they are not “chickadees” or part of the genus Poecille, they will not be given further attention in this piece.

Two maps to compare the ranges of Black capped and Boreal chickadees

Black capped chickadees are extremely common in the winter months in Minnesota. They are iconic, as their image is often used on holiday cards and ornaments. Of the seven species of chickadees in North America, the Black capped has the largest range, spanning all the way from Alaska to California and from the Pacific and Atlantic coasts (Smith, 1997). The bird is easily identified by its black cap and bib, white cheeks, and gray back. To me, these active, curious, even aggressive little birds remind me of tiny Orca Whales or oreo cookies. Orcas and oreos aside, Black capped chickadees look very similar to the Carolina chickadee, which is found in the south eastern half of the United States. The two can hybridize and learn each other’s songs, which can make identification harder where the ranges overlap (Galbart, 2016). So, birds in Kansas, Illinois, Missouri, or Ohio for example might be harder to distinguish, though Carolina chickadees have less white on their wing coverts and have a sharper division between their bib and pale underparts (Smith, 1997). Northern Minnesota is far from the range of Carolina chickadees, so this is not something that I typically have had to worry about. Black capped chickadees bear a resemblance to Boreal chickadees as well, but Boreal chickadees have a brown cap, smaller white cheeks, brown and gray back, and rusty brown flanks (Boreal Chickadee Similar Species Comparison, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology. (n.d.). Despite their similar appearance and northerly ranges, research suggests that Black capped chickadees are more closely related to Carolina chickadees and Mountain chickadees than they are to Boreal chickadees. Boreal chickadees are more closely related to Mexican chickadees and Chestnut backed chickadees. These species may have existed for two million years (Gill, Mostrom, Mack, 1993).

There are a few characteristics that make Black capped chickadees interesting birds. The first is that they are known for their memory (this is true of chickadees in general). In studies of Black capped chickadees, it has been found that they are capable of finding their food caches using memory. Their ability to remember is based upon overall location, position in relationship to other objects, and finally, color. Chickadees can store hundreds of food items a day and all North American chickadees and tits are food storers. Black capped chickadees can remember where they stored items for at least four weeks (Otter, 2007). In an experiment conducted in a large indoor aviary which tested of what, when, where memory, Black capped chickadees were found to have all three types of memory. The chickadees could remember what (if a stored item was sunflower seeds or meal worms), where (where these items were stores), and when (if the mealworms should be avoided because the passage of time would have degraded the flavor). However, a similar experiment conducted in a less natural cage did not demonstrate a memory for how long meal worms were palatable, which means more studies should be conducted. Chickadees are the only food storing birds outside of corvids (crows, jays, ravens) that have demonstrated what, where, when memory (Feeney, Roberts, Sherry, 2009).

Another interesting characteristic of Black capped chickadees is their vocalizations. For instance, during the winter, spring, and earlier summer, male chickadees studied in Wisconsin were found to make two note Fee-Bee calls while alone and moving through their territories. A faint Fee Bee vocalization was used by both male and female Black capped chickadees to communicate while the female is incubating eggs. Black capped chickadees make a gargling vocalization to warn others before they attack. Probably the most recognizable is the chick-a-dee call, which is used as a warning and to coordinate movements. There are also broken dee and begging dee vocalizations. Black capped chickadees also twitter, hiss, tseet, and snarl. Researchers have identified at least eleven different chickadee calls (Ficken, Ficken, and Witken, 1978). Chickadees are social birds, forming flocks of six to eight birds in non-breeding seasons. To communicate with each other, they have developed elaborate vocalizations. For instance, they have two alarm calls: the chickadee call and the seet. The chick-a-dee call is a mobbing vocalization, which recruits other chickadees to harass a predator. But, it also communicates information about food and types of predators. The alarm for smaller predators vocalized with more “dees” at the end. When the small predator alarm call was played back, Black capped chickadees exhibited more mobbing behavior. Smaller predators may be a bigger threat to chickadees because they are more maneuverable. Predators on the move are vocalized by a seet call whereas those that are stationary are met with the chickadee call (Templeton, Greene, and Davis, 2005). In sum, quite a bit of information is conveyed in chickadee vocalizations.

A final interesting quality about Black capped chickadees is that they are great survivors. Black capped chickadees survive in regions with harsh winters through adaptations such as caching food, cavity roosting, and entering a state of controlled hypothermia at night. By reducing their body temperature at night, Black capped chickadees may reduce their energy expenditure by 32%. To survive during the day while foraging in cold temperatures, Black capped chickadees have the ability to increase their metabolism to stay warm. Their ability to increase their metabolism exceeds other passerine birds that have been studied and approaches some mammals (Cooper and Swanson, 1994). Black capped chickadees are also survivors inasmuch as they are generalists that make use of a variety of environments. They prefer mixed deciduous and conifer forests and as cavity nesters, depend upon decaying trees or snags, but can survive in disturbed environments (Adams, Lazerte, Otter, and Burg, 2016). In Minnesota, Black capped chickadees are most commonly found in pine forests, followed by developed areas, upland conifer forests, pine-oak barrens, and oak forests. Cropland, marshes, and upland grasslands are the habitats wherein Black capped chickadees are the least common, owing the lack of trees (Explore the habits of the breeding birds of Minnesota. n.d.). Black capped chickadees have a diverse diet of berries, seeds, and insects throughout the year, except the breeding season wherein they are insectivores. Although Black capped chickadees are generally widespread, they are impacted by habitat disruption that limits tree cover. This limits genetic variation as populations are fragmented and indicates that climate change could negatively impact the species as tree species shift and narrow in distribution (Adam, Lazerte, Otter, and Burg, 2016). In other words, Black capped chickadees could become less common or at least less genetically diverse with the northern expansion of grasslands due to climate change.

Moving on to Boreal chickadees, because they are less common and located in less populated areas, they have not been researched as thoroughly as Black capped chickadees. But one immediately clear characteristic of these birds is that they are not the generalists that Black capped chickadees are. Boreal chickadees, as the name suggests, are a boreal species. Boreal forests are primarily found between 50 and 60 degrees N latitude, have long cold winters and short cool summers, and are sandwiched between tundra to the north and temperate deciduous forest to the south. Boreal forest climate is wet in the summer and dry in the winter and the forest itself consists of conifer trees and poor soils. The southern part of Boreal forests tend to consist of spruce and hemlock, while pine and tamarack dominate the forests further north where fewer trees can be supported due to nutrient poor soils (Nelson, 2013). The North American boreal forest is largest of the five major forests of the world that are considered largely intact. The others are the Amazon, Russian Boreal forest, Congo basin, and forests of New Guinea and Borneo. The North American boreal forest is 1.2 billion acres and an important nesting ground to billions of breeding birds. Boreal forests are also important in moderating the Earth’s climate, as they sequester 208 billion tons of carbon. Boreal chickadees are permanent residents of Boreal forests and prefer a habitat of balsam fir and spruce. The northern limit of their range coincides with the northern limit of white spruce trees. The southern range limit is the northern United States, where boreal forests meet deciduous forests. As a whole, it is estimated that 88% of Boreal chickadees breed in boreal forests. Like Black capped chickadees, they eat insects, berries, and seeds and they also cache their food as a winter survival tactic. Because of its northerly range and preference for the interior of spruce forests, it is observed less often than Black capped chickadees (Boreal Chickadee “Poecile hudsonica”, 2015).

A study of Boreal chickadees at Forêt Montmorency in Quebec, Canada, found that the birds had a mean flock size of four individuals and a range of three to eight individuals, which is smaller than Black capped chickadee flock size, which often consisted of six to eight individuals. Sixteen of 85 flocks contained at least one Black capped chickadee and 24 flocks contained at least one red-breasted nuthatch. The red-breasted nuthatches were more loosely associated as they foraged together, whereas the Black capped chickadees remained in close contact with the Boreal flock (Hadley and Desrochers, 2008). In areas of Michigan where both Boreal and Black capped chickadees were found, Boreal chickadees foraged in three conifer species, with 76% being black spruce. Black capped chickadees foraged in six conifer and three deciduous tree species. Both species often forage together in mixed flocks. Boreal chickadees generally prefer dense conifer forest and Black capped prefer open mixed forests. Boreal chickadees were found to spend more time foraging higher on the trees. Both spent similar amounts of time in middle zones of the tree and little time at the bottoms of trees. Trees used by Boreal chickadees were tamarack, Black spruce, and white spruce, which minimized competition with black capped chickadees. Both forage for pupae, dormant caterpillars, and insect eggs, but their strategies helped to avoid competition (Gayk and Lindsay, 2012). Minnesota is unique in that it is one of just a few states in the United States where the ranges of the two birds overlap.

Although Boreal chickadees are less vocal than Black capped chickadees (Otter, 2007), they do have many vocalizations with which they communicate. Like Black capped chickadees, they produce a “chickadee” call, which has many variations and is used for such things as communication between males and females during nest excavation and to scold other birds or predators ((McLaren, 1976). ). Compared to the Black capped chickadee, the Boreal chickadee’s “chickadee” call is often described as more nasal. Boreal chickadees also make a “seep” call which is similar to the contact call between Black capped chickadees. A sharp seep call is used to warn against predators. Boreal chickadees also hiss, trill, and make begging sounds. Like Black capped chickadees, they make a chit sound, which Black capped chickadees use to warn of ground predators and Boreal chickadees use for unknown purposes (McLaren, 1976). Unlike Black capped chickadees, Boreal chickadees do not produce a whistled song (Boreal Chickadee “Poecile hudsonica”, 2015). In a study of Black capped chickadees at Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario, a total of eighteen calls were observed (McLaren, 1976).

Because Boreal chickadees are only adapted to boreal forests, climate change is likely to have dire consequences for the species. Models predict that moose, caribou, spruce grouse, and Boreal chickadees will have entirely separate east and west populations as habitat is fragmented and pole-ward shifts in ranges. The east west divide may occur due to a vulnerable swath of boreal forest on the border between Quebec and Ontario. The slim section of forest is the narrowest swatch of boreal forest in North America and a place where boreal meets deciduous forest. By 2080, Boreal chickadees could be extirpated from this region (Murray, Peers, Majchrzak, Wehtje, Ferreira, Pickles, and Thornton, 2017). Minnesota is particularly vulnerable to climate change because the state is at the crossroads of three biomes: conifer forest, decidious forest, and prairie. At the same time, the temperature of Minnesota has gone up 3-5 degrees since the start of the last century. Duluth could have a climate more similar to Minneapolis in 50 years and the state as a whole could eventually become more like Nebraska, with the expansion of grasslands and oak savanna. Boreal forests will disappear from the state, and with them, perhaps 36 species of birds, including Boreal chickadees (Weflen, 2013).

Minnesota has two great species of chickadees (not including the tufted titmouse), but both could shift northward out of the state with climate change. Boreal chickadees are particularly vulnerable, as they are less common and an obligate boreal species. The loss of boreal forests is further troubling because the role these forests play in sequestering carbon. Black capped chickadees require trees to survive the winter and roost at night, so the expansion of grasslands or loss of trees does not bode well for the otherwise plentiful and adaptable bird. Although chickadees are sometimes taken for granted as common bird feeder birds, it turns out that they are intelligent and well adjusted to the harsh winters of Minnesota. Their vocalizations are complex and convey a plethora of important information about everything from predators to territory. Chickadees have made their home in the Americas for millions of years, so it would be tragic to undue millions of years of evolutionary history through the wanton warming of our climate through human activity and dependency on fossil fuels. The best way to celebrate Minnesota chickadees is to mobilize against climate change!

Should Travelers Take State Department Advice?

The Politics of Travel Warnings

H. Bradford

1.30.19

First of all, I will admit that I have been writing about travel more often lately. It is an easy topic to write about so I am being a bit lazy as a writer (by contrast it took me over two weeks to write my November post about the history of World War I.) With that said, a travel topic that I have been thinking about lately is the politics of State Department travel advice. Before heading to El Salvador, I checked the State Department’s website for travel warnings. El Salvador is listed as “orange” on the State Department’s Travel Advisory Map. Orange means that a traveler should “reconsider travel.” This warning level is on account of violent crime and gang activity. The warning is far from reassuring for a traveler, but, what exactly does the color coded system mean? Further, the State Department is far from a neutral entity doling out useful travel advice. It is one of the main instruments of U.S. imperialism. With that said, I will explore this topic so that travelers can approach the State Department with skepticism.

Decoding the State Department’s Color Code:

The State Department divides the world into color coded warning levels. There are seven warning levels: Red (Do Not Travel), Orange Striped (Reconsider travel-Contains areas with higher security risk), Orange (Reconsider travel), yellow striped (Exercise caution-areas with higher security risk), yellow (Exercise caution), colorless stripe (Exercise Normal Precautions – Contains Areas with Higher Security Risk), and colorless (Exercise Normal Precautions). Thus, the State Department has developed a system of risk measurement based upon a nominal scale of colors and associated risks- with red being the highest risk and white being the least highest risk. Because they are nominal, they don’t have any quantitative value. For instance, very cold could appear on a nominal scale of weather. But, what does very cold mean? To someone from a tropical region, this could be 50 degree Fahrenheit. To another individual, this could be -40 degrees Fahrenheit. “Exercise Caution-Higher Security Risk” has about as much meaning as “very cold.” Within this system, Orange is different from Striped Orange or Red, but precise difference is unknown. Of course, risk is not easily measured and like “very cold” it depends upon who you are and your position in the world. The map would look different for a rich, white, heterosexual male American than a poor, Black, lesbian, Muslim American. A person’s risk in the world is impacted by access to resources that allow for safety.

The scale, while not particularly nuanced or scientific in its approach, creates a mental schema of how safe or unsafe the world is. This schema is not entirely baseless. After all, there is indeed crime and violence in El Salvador. However, the color codes speak more about the relationship to the U.S. government and the rest of the world than travel risks. For instance, Russia is categorized as yellow striped, on account of the risk of terrorism, harassment, and arbitrary enforcement of the laws. Police harassment and arbitrary enforcement of the law is not a uniquely Russian phenomenon and while there may be some cultural and political norms regarding policing, police interactions are shaped by race, class, gender, nationality, religion, and basically, one’s relationship to state power. Are Russian police fundamentally different from Bulgarian, Serbian, Romanian, Belarusian, Macedonian, or Georgian police? None of these other countries bear warnings or warning levels as high as Russia’s (Albania and Georgia are colorless striped or two tiers safer and the other countries are not colored.) Is Albanian really two tiers safer than Russia? Russia’s safety level is also on account of instances of terrorism, but there are other countries with higher instances of terrorism with lower safety risks (such as Greece). Granted, in 2017 there were 61 deaths in Russia on account of terrorism (according to Wikipedia). Thailand is ranked two tiers lower in risk, but 72 people were killed in incidents of terrorism in 2017. It seems to me that some of the ranking has more to do with countries that the United States does not get along with than actual risk.

Consider code red, or the highest level of risk. There are few countries that are deemed entirely unfit for travel. One is Yemen. This makes sense. The country is being blockaded, starved, and bombed by Saudi Arabia. North Korea, on the other hand, is actually a very safe place to travel in terms of low crime, social stability, and lack of terrorism (but extremely unsafe for those entering illegally or with intent to challenge government authority). Travel to North Korea resulted in the horrific and mysterious death of an American tourist, which is something which should not be minimized. But, this death is deeply political and certainly given more media attention than horrific, mysterious, but less political deaths of tourists in countries friendlier to the United States. For instance, in December, Carla Stefaniak was murdered in Costa Rica. Her partially naked body was found near her AirBnB with a stab wound to the neck. This death is horrific (though less mysterious since the murderer was found.) Yet, Costa Rica is not pegged as an unsafe place to travel (striped and not colored). Sexual violence against women does not spark the same fear and outrage as the state sponsored murder of a white male college student. Sexual violence is commonplace and women are often blamed for their victimization. The violence of a tyrannical state must be framed as exotic and uniquely cruel in order to justify U.S. imperialism, even if our own prison system routinely denies medical care to prisoners, as Otto Warmbier was denied adequate care during his North Korean imprisonment. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2661478/ ). This isn’t meant to defend North Korea, but simply to point out that tourists die in less politicized contexts without much alarm. Saudi Arabia dismembered a journalist in a Turkish consulate and that country ranks as dangerous as Russia to travel to. This garnered a great deal of media attention, but did not translate to warnings about Saudi Arabia. So again, travel advisories are a reflection of the international relations of the United States.

Returning to El Salvador, the country is ranked as orange, which offers that one should reconsider travel. Other “orange” countries include Chad, Nigeria, and Mauritania. It seems there quite a qualitative difference between El Salvador and say…Chad. Chad doesn’t have much for tourist infrastructure/industry, so a tourist is probably going to have a harder time insulating themselves from threats through the buffer of tourism. For instance, Chad was visited by about 115,000 tourists in 2015, whereas El Salvador was visited by over 1.4 million tourists that same year. Chad is one of the poorest countries in the world, is engaged in a fight against Boko Haram, is viewed by the international community as having a corrupt and authoritarian government, and also experiences violent rebellion in the north of the country. I would think that there is a difference in travel to El Salvador than travel to Chad, even if El Salvador has high levels of crime. Interestingly, the British government ranks Chad as a high travel threat and advises against all travel to the north of the country and border regions with only essential travel to the rest of the country. In contrast, the British government deems El Salvador incident free for most travelers who exercise caution. I am uncertain why the State Department would lump Chad and El Salvador together in the same category of danger unless this designation helps to support U.S. immigration policy, which seeks to portray Central American migrants as dangerous criminals and because Chad is such a non-entity to U.S. interests and travel that it doesn’t warrant a higher warning level.

British travel advisory map for Chad

We Make the World Unsafe:

Another flaw of the U.S. State Department’s color code system is that it doesn’t describe why countries are coded as they are. For instance, in North and South America there are only two countries which are designated “striped orange” or the second highest level of threat. These two countries are Venezuela and Honduras. The State Department warns that in Venezuela there is the arbitrary arrest and detainment of American citizens. The warning says citizens plural, which implies it may be a common occurrence. In truth, an American citizen and former Mormon missionary named Josh Holt was arrested and spent two years in prison because it was believed by the Venezuelan government that he was stockpiling weapons and working for the CIA. Weapons and incriminating documents were found at his residence in Venezuela, but his mother claimed these were planted. It is difficult to know if this is a case of a framed innocent man or someone with terrorist intent. However, what is known is that the travel dangers in Venezuela do not exist in a vacuum and some of the conditions are created and exacerbated by U.S. foreign policy. For instance, the State Department warns travelers about the poor health infrastructure of Venezuela. This fails to mention that U.S. economic sanctions against Venezuela designed to force regime change by economically punishing the population into revolt and the economy into collapse. These sanctions have prohibited debt restructuring, borrowing from financial institutions, and the convertibility of Venezuelan currency. These tactics have made it harder to control hyperinflation and balance trade, which have contributed to murderous shortages of food and medicine. Yes, Venezuela may not be the safest place to travel to, but it would be much safer if the United States had not actively sought to overthrow the government and punish the population.

The other high risk level country is Honduras. The United States supported the 2009 coup in the country. By recognizing the Lobo (temporarily Micheletti) government and refusing to acknowledge the coup, aid to Honduras could continue as normal, including military aid that has been used to murder dissenters. Another consequence of our policy is that the tens of thousands of Hondurans who have fled the country are not recognized as political asylum seekers (to do so would be an admission that the U.S. supported government is indeed violently repressive). The State Department offers that Honduras is unsafe due to crime. Crime is an enormous topic that I have neither the time nor knowledge to address properly, but the crime in Central America is also a function of U.S. foreign policy. Murders increased in Honduras after the 2009 coup. The state has been behind some of these murders and state violence has empowered criminals, because violent crimes go unpunished or investigated. In any event, the orange striped color code bestowed upon Venezuela and Honduras is interesting since both countries have experienced U.S. supported coups and both have been destabilized by U.S. foreign policy. Thus, where a country falls in the color code system is often a result of U.S. meddling in that country. It is little wonder that most of the “red” or do not travel to countries are countries the United States is or has recently been at war with or invaded, such as Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.

Alternatives:

If one accepts the premise that going to the State Department for travel advice is about as reliable as going to your fascist grandpa for dating advice, then what is the alternative? (Note: my grandpas were cool and not fascists). The main entity that issues travel warnings are various government institutions. Every government has its own foreign policy interests and relationships and therefore biases in issuing warnings. But, even if there was a progressive institution for the issuance of travel warnings, travel safety is not something which is easily measured. For example, suppose there was a GDP type formula for travel danger. Perhaps it would look like Natural Disasters + Crime + Terrorism + Disease+ Animal Attacks +Industrial Disasters = Risk. Of course, there are other variables which could be included. However, some variables may be weighted more heavily than others due to the severity of their impact and commonality. An island that is literally nothing but an erupting volcano may not rank as high if it does not have crime, animal attacks, or terrorism. The variable of industrial disaster might be weighted more heavily depending upon the type of disaster. For instance, a reactor leaking radioactive material is of greater concern than a factory full of vats leaking molasses. There are probably some smart statistical and scientific people who could develop such a formula, but it seems that the variables are so expansive and subjective that this would not be easy. An easy measure would be the number of tourist deaths or injuries per the total tourist population. This would be useful information, but tourists may travel to “safe” destinations such as Iceland, but engage in dangerous behaviors (such as jumping into geysers or chartering private flights over erupting volcanoes). Finally, as I mentioned before, safety differs depending upon one’s access to resources. I have traveled to countries that rank pretty high on the State Department’s risk list, however, as a tourist, I am sheltered from some dangers. For instance, when I hiked up a volcano in El Salvador, the tourists were escorted by a police officer. The police officer is a state provided measure to ensure that tourists continue to visit the country and the volcano because they were not robbed or assaulted along the way. Governments often want tourism because it generates economic activity, so measures are taken to make sure that tourists are safe (sometimes at the expense of local populations if this includes dislocating homeless populations, bans on begging, busking, or loitering, increased policing, development that dislocates people or drives up housing prices, etc.) Aside from the protections enjoyed by tourists as a group, the relative safety of each individual tourist varies depending upon their class, gender, sexuality, religion, nationality, ability, age, etc. Perhaps an alternative to the State Department map would be a map of how unsafe you are depending upon different variables. For instance, a traveler who is LGBTQ might find that many countries are unsafe due to restrictive laws and punishing social norms.

On the other side of the equation, travel warnings or safety advisories are pretty one sided. It assumes that the victim is the tourist and that the danger in embedded in the destination. It would be interesting to see a reverse map depicting areas that tourists make unsafe. This sort of map would advise locals to avoid certain bars or neighborhoods that are frequented by tourists, lest they be physically assaulted by drunk tourists or sexually assaulted by entitled foreigners. Tourists are not hapless victims of a dangerous world. Tourists can create danger by vandalizing historic sites, defying local laws or customs, damaging environments, creating pollution, abusing service industry staff, sexually exploiting minors, reckless behavior, etc. In this case, Mali and Chad are comparatively safe….from tourists!

There probably is no answer of how safety can be measured. It is a political question. The question itself comes from a place of privilege. There is no shame in wanting to be safe, but the ability to go somewhere else and even ponder safety comes from a place of relative privilege to most of the world. At the same time, some places certainly are less safe on account of such things as war, disease, famine, or natural disasters. Using government warning systems to gain some sense of safety isn’t useless since it can create a starting point for further investigation. Ultimately, I don’t have an answer of how to gauge safety. Usually, I ask myself if people like me travel to the destination without incident? And, if there are incidents, what are they are how often do they happen? What kinds of measures can be taken to avoid unsafe situations? In the case of El Salvador, travel warnings did cause me some concern. Even online forums were divided between it’s awesome and safe to some sentiments of absolutely don’t go! So, when I was there alone for a few days, I didn’t venture out after dark and booked day trips in advance of my travel so that I could sight see in what I felt was a safe way. I also stayed at a nicer hotel than would be typical if my travels (I usually am fine with hostels). I felt extremely safe. In this case, I was probably overly cautious. If something terrible happens to me at some future date, I suppose I will be blamed for ignoring State Department advice. At the end of the day, like anything else in the world, the best approach is probably seeking out a variety of sources to determine the safety of a destination. Yes, this is pretty generic advice, but the main point that I wanted to convey is that the State Department is not the end all and be all of advice- in fact, its advice is shaded by U.S. relationships to the world and it is a significant reason why some countries are unsafe to begin with.

Of Communists and Kings:

Rules for Feeling History In Romania

H. Bradford
12.21.18

One of the most interesting things to observe when I travel to “dark” places is how people behave. Of course, almost everything in the world has “dark” history, but there are some places in which the dark histories are well known and less contested. Some examples that come to mind are Auschwitz, Chernobyl, Hiroshima, the Killing Fields in Cambodia, etc. These are places that most of mainstream society would view as having dark histories. Interpretations of these histories may vary, but most U.S. citizens, for instance, would feel the need to be reverent or well-behaved while visiting the USS Arizona Memorial. Indeed, while visiting this memorial, I found that the the mood was sober and quiet among American tourists. The tourists were more subdued in ritualistic thoughtfulness. So too, tourists at Auschwitz were generally quiet, subdued, and again, ritually thoughtful. Tourists who deviate from this norm are sometimes shamed, as in the case of Yolocaust, a photography project wherein Jewish artist Shahak Shapira altered tourist selfie photos, placing them in historical Holocaust images. Holocaust history is certainly contested, but at least in mainstream Western society it is acknowledged as real and horrific, even if specific Western complicity in persecution of Jews or failure to act against these atrocities may not be part of that narrative. In both of these examples, most tourists follow social scripts of how to behave and express emotion. These norms are called “feeling rules” a sociological concept developed by Arlie Hochschild. There are socially prescribed ways to express feelings at work, school, weddings, funerals, parties, and the many other facets of life. Tourists also follow unwritten social guidelines of how to express emotion. The variation in these rules offers some insight to how history is interpreted. For instance, in September I paid a visit to Primaverii Palace, a residence of the Ceausescu family. The following day, I visited two Romanian castles, Bran Castle and Peles Castle. The tourists acted very differently at each of these sites.

An image from the Yolocaust photo series, which was used to draw attention to tourist behaviors at Holocaust memorials/historical sites. The site was later taken down and tourists featured in the images often removed their selfies and apologized after being shamed by the project.

Primaverii Palace was one of over 80 residences of the Ceausescu family. The house contains the bedrooms of the Ceausescu children, gifts from foreign dignitaries, a sauna, indoor swimming pool, articles of clothing, a private movie theater, and family photographs. Tourists were very quiet in the house and there was a marked absence of laughter, joking, admiration of the tilework or decor, or anything that might come off as overtly positive. Why? Well, the house belonged to a dead communist dictator who lived well while the people of Romania were cold and hungry. The house is not meant to be admired, it is meant to be a symbol of the contradictions and failures of communism, wherein those connected to state power enjoyed luxury while the masses lived leanly. The house represents the dark history of oppression. Of course, the mansion itself is fairly modest, as far as mansions go. I have visited many larger, more ornate mansions belonging to capitalists. However, these mansions are de-politicized. The inequality associated with capitalism is normal and expected. Therefore, visitors to THOSE mansions do not have to be quiet and respectful. They can be wowed by the woodwork or the gardens. Any Western visitor to the Ceausescu mansion with an inkling of Romanian history and iota of respect for the suffering of others, will probably behave respectfully at the mansion. The mansion is political. There are many reasons for this. One, Romania’s experience with communism is not “old” history. It happened within the lifetime and memory of many visitors, who like myself, may have seen images such as emaciated Romanian orphans on the news after the collapse of Romanian communism. Two, communist dictatorship is almost incontestably viewed as bad. There are few Western sympathizers with Ceausescu. I myself am a revolutionary socialists and while I can explain why things went so awry in the Soviet Union and subsequent communist countries, I have no affinity or apology for the Ceausescus. Communist Romania, like North Korea or Cambodia under Pol-Pot, is a country with what Goffman called a spoiled identity. In Goffman’s case, the term was applied to stigmatized individuals, but I would extend this concept to the notion that an entire countries can be stigmatized by the brutality of their government and resulting ostracism and isolation from the West. For political reasons, communist labelled countries are more stigmatized than similarly brutal of regimes that were supported by capitalist powers. A person who supports a particularly brutal regime, even critically, faces the risk of having their own identity spoiled by associating themselves with human rights violations and state repression. Thus, the feeling rules while visiting the home of a communist leader dictate that one should treat the visit with the respect owed to those who suffered under communism. Failure to do so might imply support of state repression or insensitivity to victims of communism, both of which threaten to spoil a tourist’s identity in the eyes of other tourists.

Primaverii Palace

This respect and quiet were not expected at the two castles that I visited. Peles Castle was an expansive estate tucked in the Carpathian Mountains. It was shrouded in a misty forest of dark pines. The immediate reaction of the tourists is that it looked like a fairy tale. Inside, the castle was richly decorated with gold leaf and walnut, for a rustic look. The castles contains 30 toilets and 170 rooms. In contrast, Ceausescu’s palace contained 80 rooms. The castle was built by Carol I, though really it was “built” by nameless laborers who made the furniture, rugs, rooms, stairways, gardens, plumbing, electricity, and so on. The grandeur of a castle is not framed as an expression of the oppression of others. The castle is apolitical. Yet, visitors could be quiet and thoughtful as they consider the inequality of wealth under feudalism and capitalism or the thousands of workers whose labor is rendered invisible in the splendor of the castle. How did Romanians live under the rule of Carol I and his successors? What wars were they sent to fight in? For what purpose? Where did all of Carol I’s wealth come from? A king should very well be as loathed as any communist dictator. Kings represent a system of benefits based upon heredity. Carol I was from the German Hohenzollern family and when he came to power in Romania in 1866, 38% of the arable land was owned by 2000 individual landowners. Serfdom was abolished in 1746 in Wallachia and 1749 in Moldavia. In Transylvania in 1848, landlords tried to privatize wood, which had been traditionally an item of the commons which peasants could use for building, fires, charcoal, barrels, etc. In this sense, Romania was in a process of transitioning to capitalism, though still mostly rural and agrarian. Under Carol I’s rule, Romania was a constitutional monarchy, but the king maintained the power to dissolve the parliament, controlled the military, make treaties, appoint ministers and government personnel, approve laws, etc. There is nothing progressive about monarchy, which concentrates state power among wealthy men whose qualification to rule is hereditary. Yet, on Trip Advisor, the castle is described as charming, wonderful, historic, a gem, fabulous, and beautiful. It could just as easily be described as an icon for the oppression of women (who were not allowed to be monarchical rulers and even ruling class women were breeders at best) or an atrocious waste of resources that could have gone towards the benefit of Romanian peasants. The castle itself was built by 400 workers, by some accounts (it seems that a cursory internet search doesn’t yield a wealth of information on the actual working conditions or workers who built the castle) and that these workers spoke up to 14 languages. Workers included some imported skilled laborers, but also Albanians, Turks, and Romani who were presumably less skilled or at least not noted as skilled in the scant descriptions of the workers. Considering the long history of oppression and marginalization in Romanian society, it is hard to imagine that Romani workers were anything but hyper-exploited. Slavery was abolished in Romania between the 1840s and 1850s and Roma made up the vast majority of Romanian slaves. In 1859 there were 250,000 emancipated slaves in Romania. Thus, when construction of Peles castle began in 1873, Roma laborers would have less than two decades of freedom from six hundred years of slavery. The castle, therefore, might also be looked upon as a monument to the oppression of Roma. Of course, tourists do not see this when they see the castle. There are no feeling rules that dictate quiet contemplation or soberness. Monarchy is taken for granted unless notoriously cruel (such as King Leopold II of Belgium) and there is a sense that monarchs can be good, bad, or neutral unlike communist dictators which tend to be framed as some shade of bad. Perhaps these feeling rules would be different in a different era wherein the struggle against monarchy or the spread of capitalism was still in its infancy or this history was more contemporary. Unfortunately, monarchy is depoliticized, so visitors to Peles or that matter Versailles or Russia’s Winter Palace, are unlikely to seethe with anger at the excesses of monarchs, take joy in the violent mass uprisings against such inequalities, or quietly reflect on the lot of peasants or those less fortunate.

Peles Castle

Finally, I visited Bran Castle. The mood here was different from Peles castle and from the Ceausescu mansion. It was one of whim, fantasy, and dubious history. Although Bran castle has little to do with the history of Vlad the Impaler or vampires, it was marketed as Dracula’s castle, where one could purchase an array of Dracula themed souvenirs and foods. A tourist could even take a Dracula tour or attend a large Halloween party hosted there each year. The castle is famous because it is similar to the castle described by Bram Stoker in Dracula. While the story of Carol I is made bland by the slow taming of monarchy, Vlad the Impaler was a thoroughly brutal ruler who by some historical accounts killed 90% of the boyars to replace them by a new ruling class that would be loyal to him, abused and murdered his mistresses, and impaled over 20,000 Turks at the Night Attack at Targoviste. It is debatable if his cruelty was uniquely terrible by the moral standards of monarchs of the 1400s. Because his atrocities are several hundred years old, he is a character that can be looked upon with dark fascination or even historical neutrality. Unlike Ceausescu, who is very real, Vlad the Impaler, although historical, is mythological in his association with vampirism. Thus, a visit to Bran Castle (which was not associated with him) is not governed by feeling rules that require respect for death and suffering. In contrast, the castle is marketed to celebrate death, the supernatural, and spookiness. If anything, the castle is disappointingly normal in that it really doesn’t have a particularly dark history, as far as castles go. Again, the celebration of Dracula and Vlad the Impaler represents an extreme depoliticization of the excesses of monarchy. One of the only overtly political marker in the castle is the story of various Romanian monarchs and how the castle was appropriated by the communist state. After the collapse of communism, Bran castle was returned to the Romanian royal family (who had been exiled in 1948). This is supposed to be viewed as right and just. The right of monarchs to the property is not questioned and is simply a matter of the order of things. The remnant Hapsburgs who own the castle have since refurbished it and opened it to the public. Their generosity and stewardship is to be celebrated.

In a world where tourists should feel reflective and subdued in the face of communist atrocities, I feel that the same standards should be applied to those of feudalism and capitalism. The double standard seems disingenuous, as if suffering matters, then all suffering is worth consideration. The world is imbued with inequality, injustice, and pain. In some cases, this is obvious to a tourist. This has to do with how history is understood and felt. The rules of feeling and understanding history are political. I have visited many castles, but in almost all of them, the suffering is invisible and there is no questioning of inequality or wealth. A castle is often nothing more than a pretty object to be stunned by. When it isn’t, it is perhaps a ruin or a damp remnant of some fantastic and distant time. Politics should be returned to these buildings so that tourists can remain alert for the contradictions and misery making inequalities of the world. Excess and luxury should be fought against, whether it is the excess of communist rulers or the excess of kings. Both represent the theft of wealth from the land and from labor and lives of ordinary people. Almost everything should make us angry, disgusted, or sad. At the very least, feeling rules should be considered as they indicate norms of historical interpretation.

Intentional Living Grows Through the Bullets of a Journal?

Capitalism and the Organized Life

H. Bradford

12/3/18

Mao Zedong once wrote that political power grows through the barrel of a gun. I am no Maoist, but there seems to be a cult growing around the bullet journal. It is enough to make me wonder if intentional living grows through the bullets of a journal. It started earlier this year, when I noticed that my coworkers had very elaborate planner books. I have kept a yearly planner and separate goal book for a few years now, but these books were always utilitarian. In the books, I very plainly record my schedule and goals throughout the year. These books were used to track my progress or organize my life. I never considered the aesthetics of keeping a schedule. Then, suddenly, it seemed that everyone had fancy books with stickers and colorful pens, in which they tracked the minutiae of daily living. It seemed like a lot of work…and a lot of cost…as these planners cost $80, plus various accessories. Generally, I had been paying less than $10 for my planning supplies. However, the siren call of stickers, pens, lists, and schedules called me to Michael’s, where I had a 50% off coupon. I bought my own fancy schedule book, albeit a cheaper version.

Image stolen from internet.

First of all, I was surprised to find an entire aisle of the store devoted to planner books. When did this happen? I only noticed the trend this year, when suddenly everyone had these books. And now, boom…a whole aisle! According to the Star Tribune, the first official bullet journal was launched in 2014 by Ryder Carol and today over 281,000 people follow @bulletjournal on Instagram. The goal of these journals, planners, or notebooks is to live more intentionally (Pearson, 2018). Bullet journals are particularly popular among millennials, who on average spend $60-80 on purchases at Appointed, an online store that specializes in paper products such as journals and calendars. A London based psychologist named Dr. Perpetua Neo (whose name seems like a character from the Matrix or a diabolical machine) posits that millenials like these planners because it gives them a sense of control (something they don’t have much of in the face of wars, unstable economy, debt, etc.) (Babur, 2018). That is an interesting theory. Sure, I want control in my own life. But, what is the end goal? Why be in control and what must one be in control of? Common categories for the planning products include finance, goals, health, and spirituality. For me, I want to be more productive. In this sense, bullet planners are something akin to Pinterest meets the scientific management of the personal life. I imagine that if somehow I squeezed out just a little more time from my day, I would be a better person. It is about control, but it is also about productivity and the self as a project.

Scientific management was method of management developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor in his 1911 book “Principles of Scientific Management.” The book was based upon lessons learned when he tried to increase the productivity of workers at Bethlehem Steel. Scientific management involved such things as timing the workers, controlling their movements to improve efficiency, and paying them on the basis of their productive output (Mihm, 2018). Taylorism is alive and well in workplaces today. For instance, each time a work place does a time study to increase efficiency, it is following this century old method of increasing worker productivity by cutting superfluous worker activity and establishing benchmarks or output goals. Amazon warehouse workers have been made to wear bracelets that track how long it takes to fetch items, which they must do each nine seconds (Salame, 2018). From a Marxist perspective, capitalists try to increase the productivity of workers to increase their profits. Workers generate profit for capitalists because there is a gap between the wage they are paid and the value of their production, which is called surplus value. If workers were paid the exact value of their production, there would be no profit. For instance, at one of my jobs I take photographs of Santa Claus. This generates $1000-$2000 of sales each day. In order to make a profit, the photo company must make sure that wages paid to Santa, the photographer, and the managers is less than $1000-$2000 per day. Of course, there are other costs as well, such as photo paper, the camera, costumes and uniforms, receipt paper, etc. These are considered constant capital, that is, they do not generate profit and therefore, while these costs can be cut (such as wasting less photo paper) they are mostly money sinks. On the other hand, labor is variable capital. A lot can be done to manipulate variable capital in order to generate more profit. Wages can be cut, productivity increased, work day lengthened, breaks shortened, staffing deceased, etc. The matter of profit making is complicated by the fact that things such as competition, the replacement of workers with machines, and the need to invest in new technologies tends to cause profits to decline with time. That means that inevitably, labor costs have to be cut and the exploitation of workers must be increased to remain profitable. Scientific management was a way to increase profits by squeezing more productivity from workers.

What does all of this mean for personal lives or have anything to do with planners? No one profits from how many books I read in a year, how many days a week I work out at the gym, or any number of things I might track in my journal. However, I believe that the rise of bullet journaling serves capitalism in a number of ways. For one, it seems that some aspects of bullet journaling apply scientific management to the personal life. That is, if a person tracks their goals, daily habits, spending, fitness, or other facets of their life in an intentional manner, a person can eke out more productivity. Productivity is viewed as a virtue in our society. It is rare to be shamed for being productive or sad because your day was exceptionally productive. Max Weber argued that the virtue of hard work associated with Protestantism (frugality, discipline, and hard work) were important in fostering the growth of capitalism. While Marxists look to material conditions and would view these values as a part of the superstructure of a society, these sorts of values certainly play a role in the functioning of an economic system. Capitalism functions a lot better if the workforce generally values productivity and hard work. On the other hand, because we are overworked, we have little time for leisure and personal pursuits. Our free time has to be regimented because it IS in limited supply. My time sheet for two weeks of work at ONE job was 116 hrs this week. I have two other part time jobs in addition to this. My coworkers who lovingly fill out their journals also work multiple jobs. There is no way for me to read 30 books, see 50 new species of birds, or attend 150 political events a year without some radical scheduling. My desire for productivity in my personal life is a desire to live as something more than a worker. My desire to work is the desire to sustain myself and have some extra for living (hobbies, travel, experiences). The sad thing is that about 8 million Americans have multiple jobs. Pretty planners might be a way to beautify the prison of work that we find ourselves in until retirement or death removes us from the labor market.

I drew a volcano in my book.

Another aspect of this trend is gender. These planners are marketed to women. I was frustrated that the designs for the books, stickers, and other accessories were SO extremely feminine. The planner was full of floral prints, rainbows, unicorns, pastels, You Go Girl, Girl Boss, vapid inspirational words or quotes about being a free spirit or following your dreams, and other traditional gender tripe. Why can’t planners have skulls, fossils, bats, moths, dark colors, swear words, quotes from revolutionaries, glow in the dark, scratch and sniff, etc. I want a planner that says I will work until I die or that suicide is always an option. I don’t need the “Happy Planner” (the brand I bought) since I think “The Scarred by Depression Planner” is a more accurate description of my way of life. Why do women have to be happy? What if someone wants “The Angry Planner” wherein you write your goals into little flaming piles of shit? Anyway, I am sure if these planners remain popular, these products will start to appear (if they haven’t already) to draw more consumers into the market. However, right now the planners are very traditionally feminine (which isn’t terrible, but just seems narrow and to me, indicates that these planners appeal to white, middle class women with semi-conventional tastes. . The fact that these planners are marketed to women also indicates some things about society. One, women don’t have a lot of time! Planners are a way to manage time, which many women lack due to responsibilities as paid workers and unpaid workers who take care of children, elderly, or adult men by cooking, cleaning, and managing homes. It also represents the ways in which women feel pressured to view their bodies and selves as an unfinished project. Tracking diets, exercise, hobbies, goals, etc. are a way to become an ideal woman.

I drew a bird. But will it really be …my year?

Anyway, I bought myself a planner. I chose one with a travel theme. I like travel and I want 2019 to be a great year. I enjoy tracking things and I will admit that I view myself and my life as an unfinished project. I am never enough. I will never be enough. I doubt that a planner will help me feel like a enough, but it might help me squeeze more productivity out of each day. Or, perhaps it will serve as a memory book of all the things I did or tried to do in 2019. I don’t think there is anything wrong with creating fun schedule books. I just think this trend represents a certain way of existing within capitalism and patriarchy. In previous societies, such a thing might be unthinkable because days, hours, and even linear time are concepts that discipline us into workers…and there was a time long ago when we weren’t workers or at least not the wage workers we are today. I don’t think bullet journals are some kind of capitalist conspiracy to oppress us. For people with ADHD it may help organize life in a useful way. For others, it may be a fun, relaxing, hobby akin to scrap booking or more traditional journaling. However, I do think that if a person is going to live intentionally, this should also mean intentionally questioning why we must be so productive in the first place and who profits from our sense that we are not enough! Certainly the companies that make these books profit if they are charging $80 for them! Health and fitness industries, travel industries, cosmetic industries, magazines, etc. all survive by the insecurities of women who feel they are not enough. I am not above this. I am not enough. And because of that, capitalism will always be able to squeeze just a little more from me at work and at leisure….

Lessons from World War I

H. Bradford

11/12/18

November 11, 2018 marks the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. This is a momentous anniversary since our world is still deeply influenced by the outcome of World War I. Yet, in the United States, World War I is not a popular war to learn about. It is not a war that American students love to learn about in the same way the they love World War II, with its villains and seemingly black and white struggle against fascism. Despite its impact on world history, it does not lend itself as many movies and documentaries. When it does, for instance in the popular Wonder Woman film released in 2017, it is warped to resemble World War II to make itself more interesting to American audiences. Of course, World War I is important in its own right and offers important historical lessons. As an activist, it is useful to examine the struggle against World War I, as it was a crucible that tested the ideological mettle of revolutionaries and activists.

World War I- An Introduction

World War I is significant for its brutality, industrialized warfare, and for reshaping the globe. The brutality of the war is massive stain on the blood soaked histories of all imperialist nations. As a low estimate, over 8.5 million combatants died in the war with 21 million wounded and up to 13 million civilian casualties. The nations that went to war were criminal in their barbaric sacrifice of millions of soldiers. For instance, the Russian Empire sent troops into battle armed only with axes, no wire cutters, and without boots. Early in the war, of an army corps of 25,000 soldiers, only one returned to Russia, as the rest were either killed or taken prisoner. In the first month of the war alone, 310,000 Russians were killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. On several occasions, British soldiers were ordered to advance against German trenches, which only resulted in massive bloodshed as they faced machine gun fire and tangled miles of barbed wire fences. When forced to march against the trenches at Loos, 8,000 of 10,000 British soldiers were killed for a gain of less than two miles of occupied territory. In the first two years of the war, Britain had 250,000 dead soldiers for the gain of eight square miles. At the Battle of Verdun, 90,000 British soldiers perished in six weeks. At the Battle of Somme, 57,000 British troops perished in one day and 19,000 in one hour alone. The fighting continued even after the Armistice was signed on 11/11/18, as it was signed at 5 am, but did not go into effect until 11 am. In the twilight between war and peace, 2,738 soldiers died and 8,000 were wounded. The scope of this senseless bloodshed seems unfathomable. The scale of human suffering was magnified by industrial methods of war. World War I saw new weapons, such as tanks, airplanes, giant guns mounted on trains, machine guns (which had been used in previous conflicts such as the Boer war), aerial bombings from zeppelins, submarines, and poison gas. Barbed wire was also a recent invention, which secured the defensive lines of both sides, ensuring a bloody stalemate. The conflict itself resulted in the collapse of empires and the division of colonial spoils (Hochschild, 2011).

Almost everyone who has taken a history class remembers the tired narrative that World War I began in June 1914 with the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and his pregnant wife, Sofia in Sarajevo by the Bosnian Serb, Gavrilo Princip. This unleashed a chain of events wherein Russia vowed to protect Serbia against an Austro-Hungarian invasion. In turn, Austro-Hungary sought to ally itself with Germany against Russia and France vowed to ally itself with Russia against Germany. Britain justified entering the war on behalf of poor, innocent, neutral, little Belgium (which just years prior was neither poor, innocent, or neutral in King Leopold II’s genocidal rubber extraction from the Congo Free State), a strategic passage for German troops invading France. The narrative goes that World War I was born from the anarchy of alliances. Of course, the causes of the war are far more profound than upkeeping treaties and national friendships. This method of framing the war as a domino of effect treaties renders the possibility of resisting the war invisible. It also ignores that these treaties themselves were the outcome of imperialist countries volleying for power.

For historical context, there were massive changes in Europe during the 1800s. On one hand, the 1800s saw the accelerating decline of the Ottoman Empire, which had been considered the sickman of Europe in terms of empires since it lost at the Battle of Vienna in 1683. Wars and independence movements of the 1800s shrank Ottoman territory as countries such as Greece, Serbia, Egypt, Bulgaria, and later Albania, became independent. The Ottoman Empire was strained by internal debate over modernizing or harkening back to bygone times. The century saw the disbanding of the Janissaries, defeat in the Russo-Turkish war, and the revolt of the Young Turks. The Russo-Turkish War saw the establishment of independent Serbia, Romania, and Bulgaria. The Treaty of Berlin awarded Bosnia to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which upset Serbians and inspired the formation of the Black Hand, which fought for reunification with Bosnia as well as unification with other areas populated by Serbians. The disintegration of the Ottoman Empire created territorial concerns as newly emerging countries such as Serbia, Bulgaria, and Albania sought to establish boundaries at the expense of one another. The Balkan Wars fought just prior to the start of WWI came out of these territorial disputes. Thus, the Ottoman entry into WWI on the side of Germany and Austro-Hungary was largely in the interest of retaking lost territories. Likewise, Bulgaria joined the conflict on the side of the Central Powers with the hope of regaining territory lost in the 1913 Balkan War, namely southern Macedonia and Greece (Jankowski, 2013).

While Ottomans were in decline, Germany and Russia were struggling for ascendancy. The 1800s saw the formation of the German state, an outcome of the 1866 war between Prussia and Austro-Hungary and the Germanification of people within this territory under Kaiser Wilhelm II. The 1800s also saw Germany’s entry into the imperialist conquest of the world as it sought to colonize places such as modern day Namibia, Botswana, Cameroon, Rwanda, Burundi, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Marshall Islands, etc (Jankowski, 2013). It should also be noted that Germany was 50% larger than its present size with one of Europe’s strongest economies (Hochschild, 2011). The Russian Empire saw its own economy growing with the expansion of railroads and a population twice the size of Germany’s (Hochschild, 2011). Although Russia was hobbled in the 19th century by serfdom and slow industrialization, it won the Russo-Turkish War only to see its gains reversed by the Treaty of Berlin. It was further humiliated by the loss of a 1905 war against Japan and held on to brutal Tsarist autocracy at the cost of hundreds of lives in the face of protests for bread and labor reforms that same year. The 1800s was also a time of Russian imperial expansion into Central Asia and the Caucasus, with interest in expansion as far as India, much to the chagrin of Britain. After losing the 1905 war with Japan, Russia began to expand and modernize its military, which led to Germany doing the same for fear of being eclipsed (Jankowski, 2013). This drive for global conquest and for gobbling up the shrinking territories is again related to imperialism.

German colonies at the turn of the century

Prior to the outbreak of World War I, European powers expected that war was inevitable. British and French officials were expecting Germany to go to war with Russia after Russia’s 1905 uprising. In 1894, France and Russia entered an alliance with one another that if one was attacked by Germany, the other would declare war on Germany to ensure a war on two fronts. France had lost territory (Alsace and Lorraine) in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, so there was a strong desire for revenge among nationalists who wanted to go to war with Germany to reclaim lost land (Tuchman, 1990). Between 1908 and 1913, the arms expenses of the six largest countries of Europe increased by 50% and 5-6% of national budgets were devoted to military spending (Hochschild, 2011). For nine years, Britain and France strategized what a German attack would look like and duly prepared. Belgian had been created as a neutral state in 1830 with Britain a strong proponent of neutrality to secure itself from invasion. In 1913, Germans helped to reorganize the Ottoman Army, which upset Russia. France and Germany had each developed their own war plans, such as France’s Plan 17 and Germany’s Schlieffen Plan (Tuchman, 1990). Even in popular culture in the years leading up to the war, German invasion became a fiction genre. For example, the Daily Mail ran a novel called The Invasion of 1910, which depicted a German invasion of the East coast of England (Hochschild, 2011).

WWI and Imperialism

From a Marxist perspective, the primary cause of World War I was imperialism. Imperialism was the linchpin of the anti-war socialist analysis of World War I, a topic which we be explored in greater detail in the next section. The main proponent of this perspective was Vladimir Lenin, who drew his analysis of imperialism from the writings of Rosa Luxemburg, who wrote The Accumulation of Capital and Nikolai Bukharin, who wrote Imperialism and the World Economy. Lenin also developed his theory based upon economist John Hobson’s Imperialism: A Study and Marxist economist Rudolf Hilferding’s Financial Capital (Nation, 1989). According to Lenin, imperialism was the highest stage of capitalism, characterized by such things as monopoly capital, a monopoly of large banks and financial institutions, the territorial partition of the world, the economic partition of the world by cartels, and the control of raw materials by trusts and the financial oligarchy. Lenin characterized imperialism resulting from a trend towards the concentration of productive power. That is, imperialism features fewer companies with larger worker forces and greater production. To him, the movement towards the monopolization of capital occurred following a series of economic crises in capitalism in 1873 and 1900 (2005) The fusion of capital into larger blocs was an important characteristic of capitalism observed by Karl Marx. It occurred when larger capitalists destroying smaller ones and through the union of smaller capital into larger ones, a process mediated by banks and stock markets. Once there were fewer firms on the playing field, they often united into cartels or agreements to limit competition and divide the market. Banks also became concentrated into fewer powerful banks, which melded with industrial capital and the state (Patniak, 2014). On one hand, imperialism provided the advantage that it increased economic organization, planning, and efficiency, which were economic characteristics that Lenin theorized might serve a transition to socialism. On the other hand, imperialism also resulted in less innovation, stagnation, and an unevenness in concentrations of capital. This unevenness created contradictions in the development of cities versus rural areas, heavy versus light industry, gaps between rich and poor, and gaps between colonies and colonizers. These contradictions created systemic instability in the long run, which cartels could only temporarily stave off (Nation, 1989).

Imperialism resulted in increased competition of state supported monopolies for markets and raw materials. World War I was the result of partitioning the world. In this context, workers were given the choice between fighting for their own national monopolies or making revolution. Lenin believed that workers should turn imperialist war into a civil war against capitalism. This was in contrast to social democrats who wanted workers to fight for their nations or Kautsky who felt workers should defend their nations, but not fight on the offensive. Kautsky had postulated that the world was in a state of ultra imperialism, which would actually result in greater peace and stability as the stakes of war were higher. Rosa Luxemburg believed that capitalism had not yet reached every corner of the globe, so revolution was not yet possible. Thus, there was debate over the nature of imperialism within the socialist movement. To Lenin, imperialism allowed the prospect of revolution in both advanced and colonized countries, since colonized countries were brought into imperialist wars as soldiers (Nation, 1989). For instance, 400,000 African forced laborers died in the war for Great Britain. The first use of poison gas in the war was in April 1915 and the first victims were French troops from North Africa who observed the greenish yellow mist of chlorine, then succumbed to coughing blood and suffocation. Although the horror of zeppelin bombs fell on Britain in May 1915, the first use of zeppelin bombings was actually by Spain and France before the war, to punish Moroccans for uprising. And while Britain justified the war as a matter of self-determination for Belgium, they crushed self-determination for Ireland when 1,750 Irish nationalists rose up in 1916 for independence. Britain sent troops there, eventually out numbering the nationalists 20 to 1. Fifteen of leaders of the uprising were shot, including James Connolly who was already wounded when executed and had to be tied to a chair to be shot (Hochschild, 2011). Further, while the European arena is given more historical attention, battles were fought in colonies as well. In 1916 in south-west Tanzania, Germany fought the the British with an army of about 15,000. Of this number, 12,000 were Africans- who fought other Africans fighting on behalf of the British. Because the borders were created by Europeans and did not represent cultural, historical, or tribal lands, these African soldiers sometimes had to fight members of their family. More than one million East Africans died in World War I (Masebo, 2015). France enlisted 200,000 West Africans to fight on their behalf in the war, calling them Senegalese tirailleurs, even though they came from various West African countries. These soldiers were forcibly recruited, then promised benefits that they were later denied (AFP, 2018). Colonies were inextricably linked, economically and militarily, to imperialist war efforts. Thus, in addition to blaming imperialism for the outbreak of World War I, Lenin postulated that the national struggle of oppressed nationalities was part of the larger struggle against imperialism.

From Forgotten African Battlefields of WWI, CNN

Lenin noted that by 1900, 90% of African territory was controlled by European powers, in contrast to just over 10% in 1876. Polynesia was 98% controlled by European powers compared to 56% in 1876. As of 1900, the world was almost entirely divided between major European powers with the only possibility of redivision. Between 1884 and 1900, France, Britain, Belgium, Portugal, and Germany saw accelerated expansion of their overseas territories. He quoted Cecil Rhode, who saw imperialism as necessary for creating markets for goods and opportunities for surplus British population (Lenin, 2005). By the time World War I began, the banqueting table of capitalists was full. World War I was a means to redistribute these imperialist spoils. Germany sought to test its power against that of Britain and France. To Lenin, one side or the other had to relinquish colonies (Lenin, War and Revolution, 2005). Indeed, World War I resulted in a re-division of the world. The war saw the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, whose territories were divided among the victors. For instance, Syria and Lebanon became French protectorates and Britain took control of Mesopotamia, most of the Arabian peninsula, and Palestine. The United States, a latecomer to the war, cemented its position as a world power. The defeat of Germany resulted in the redistribution of German colonies, such as German East Africa to Britain, part of Mozambique to Portugal, the division of Cameroon between British and French, and the formation of Ghana and Togo under British and French control, respectively. Even New Zealand and Australia gained control of German Pacific island territories German Samoa, German New Guinea, and Nauru. Various states came out of the defeated Austro-Hungarian Empire, including Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, The Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and the Kingdom of Romania. Of course, revolution destroyed the Russian Empire before the conclusion of the war, resulting in the independence of Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia. Poland was constructed of territories lost by Russian, German, and Austro-Hungarian Empires.

Socialist Resistance to World War I

Like all wars, there was resistance to World War I. A group that would have been well positioned to resist the outbreak of the war was the socialist movement. However, in August 1914, various socialists in Britain, France, Germany, and Austro-Hungary sided with their national governments in participating in World War I (Partington, 2013). For some context, the Second International was a loose federation of socialist groups which arose out of the collapse of the First International in 1876 over debates related to anarchy led by Bukharin. Between its founding in 1889 to the outbreak of World War I, the Second International saw success in terms of rising standards of living for workers, mass popularity, and electoral success that brought socialists into various governments. One the eve of the war, there were three million socialist party members in Germany, one million in France, and a half million in Great Britain and Austria-Hungary respectively (Nation, 1989). The German Socialist Party was the largest party in the the German legislature. Even in the United States, where socialism was less popular, socialist candidate Eugene Debs garnered 900,000 votes in his 1912 presidential bid (Hochschild, 2011). During this time period, socialists of the Second International certainly had opportunities to debate war, as there was the Balkan Wars, Boer Wars, Italy’s invasion of Libya, and war between Russia and Japan. However, the international failed to develop a cohesive anti-war strategy. As World War I approached, socialists made some efforts to organize against it. For instance, in July 1914 socialists organized modest anti-war protests and there were strikes in St. Petersburg (Nation, 1989) and strikes involving over a million workers in Russia earlier in the year. In July 1914, socialist leaders such as Kerrie Hardie, the working class Scottish socialist parliamentarian from Great Britain, Jean Jaures, the French historian and parliamentarian from the French Section of the Workers International, and Rosa Luxemburg, the Jewish Polish Marxist theorist from the German Socialist Party (SPD), met in Brussels for a Socialist Conference to discuss the impending war. Hardie vowed to call for a general strike should Britain enter a war. Jaures spoke before 7,000 Belgian workers calling for a war on war. Unfortunately, Jaures was assassinated in Paris shortly after this meeting by a nationalist zealot. Nevertheless, there were trade union and leftist organized marches in Trafalgar Square in London against the war, where Hardie again called for a general strike against war (Hochschild, 2011). Despite these agitational efforts, the fate of the international was sealed when on August 4th the German SPD voted for emergency war allocations. Socialists in other European countries followed suit, adopted a “defensist” position in which they opted to suspend class struggle in the interest of defending their nations (Nation, 1989). Only 14 of 111 SPD deputies voted against war allocations (Hoschild, 2011). The fact that the majority of socialists supported the war shattered The Second International, which over the course of the war saw the decline of socialist party membership. For instance, Germany’s SPD lost 63% of its membership between 1914-1916 (Nation, 1989). With millions of members in all of the belligerent countries, positions of political power, and union support, socialists had the power to stop the war. Putting nationalism before internationalism was one of the greatest failures of socialists.

Rosa Luxemburg

Not all socialists agreed with the defensist position and during the course of the war they formed an small opposition within the Second International, a segment of which would eventually became the Third International and Communist Party. This opposition had diverse views, ranging from the Menshevik position that socialists should call for neither victory nor defeat of imperialist powers to Lenin’s position of revolutionary defeatism. As her SPD counterparts were calling for war allocations, Rosa Luxemburg called a meeting at her apartment to oppose the war and strategize how to shore up an anti-war opposition within the party. After this meeting, Karl Liebknecht campaigned around Europe with the slogans that “The Main Enemy is at Home”, “Civil War Not Civil Truce” and echoing Jaures, a call to “Wage War Against War.” They shared a further left position in the party that the only way to end the war was to make revolution. However, both Luxemburg and Liebknecht were arrested in February 1915 (Nation, 1989).

Another early mobilization of socialists against the war was a Women’s International Conference first proposed by Inessa Armand, representing the left faction of the anti-war socialists and organized by Clara Zetkin, who was a centrist within the anti-defensist opposition. Zetkin’s centrist anti-defensist position emphasized peace over making revolution (Nation, 1989). After writing An appeal to Socialist Women of All Countries, Zetkin organized the March 1915 Women’s International Conference in neutral Berne, Switzerland for anti-war socialist women. Although she was not as quick to place blame on the socialists for supporting their governments nor emphasize the need for revolution, Clara Zetkin had a long history of anti-war credentials. She was the secretary of the Women’s Socialist International and which she founded in 1907. She was also one of the founders of International Women’s Day. She was a vocal opponent of British war against Boers in South Africa, articulating this position on a May Day speech in 1900. Later, she was an opponent of the First Balkan War and warned that it could develop into a war between greater European powers (Partington, 2013).

Clara Zetkin

The Women’s International Conference was attended by 28 delegates from 8 countries, who developed resolutions on such things as an immediate end to the war, peace without humiliating conditions on any nation, and reparations for Belgium. A manifesto based upon the conference was published later in June. Again, slogans such as “war on war” and “peace without conquest or annexations” were called for. The role of financial interests such as the arms industry was spotlighted as well as how capitalists used patriotism to dupe workers into fighting in the war and weakening socialism. Russian delegates voted to amend this resolution to clearly blame socialists who had collaborated with capitalist governments and called for women to join illegal revolutionary association to advance the overthrow of capitalism. This amendment was rejected as it was viewed as divisive and called for illegal activity. The British delegation added a amendment that condemned price increases and wage decreases during the war and which welcomed other anti-war activists to join them in struggle. The second part of this resolution was not passed (Partington, 2013). The conference was significant because it was the first anti-war conference attended by representatives from belligerent nations. The conference also set the stage for the Zimmerwald conference, which sought to better organize the opposition within the Second International towards ending the war, reforming the international, or abandoning it (Nation, 1989).

The Zimmerwald Conference began on September 11, 1915 in a small swiss village of Zimmerwald under the auspices that it was the meeting of an Ornithological Society. The conference was attended by 38 individuals from 11 countries. The conference is more famous for its male attendees such as Trotsky, Lenin, Zinoviev, Radek, and Martov. However, several women attended including Henriette Roland-Holst a poet and Social Democratic Party member from the Netherlands, Angelica Balanoff of the Italian Socialist Party, Bertha Thalheimer and Minna Reichert of the SPD in Germany. Henriette Roland-Holst went on to oversee the creation of Der Verbote, a journal which served as a mouthpiece for the ideas of the conference. Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxemburg were in prison at the time. The conference manifesto blamed the cause of the war on imperialism, demanded an immediate end to the war, peace without annexations, and the restoration of Belgium. Clara Zetkin was actually against the conference because she viewed it as sectarian. A point of contention at the conference was the nature of self-determination. Lenin and the Bolsheviks supported self-determination for oppressed nationalities. Rosa Luxemburg, not in attendance, felt that this was a distraction and that national liberation was impossible under imperialism. Lenin argued that national struggle complimented socialist struggle. Another point of contention was whether or not to break with the Second International. Since defenism was still the majority position among socialists, most members of the opposition feared breaking with the international as it would mean being part of a smaller, less viable organization. Rosa Luxemburg disagreed that it was a matter that the organization should decide from within, but should be a worker initiative (Nation, 1989).

The socialist movement continued to debate strategies and the nature of the war throughout the war. As the war continued, anti-war actions increased. For instance, in July 1916, 60,000 soldiers died in a single day at the Battle of Somme. In the first six months of 1916 alone, here were one million war casualties. It is unsurprising that in May 1916, 10,000 people protested in Potsdamer Platz in Berlin. The protest was organized by Rosa Luxemburg’s socialist organization, The Spartacist League. There were also strikes and demonstrations in Leipzig that year (Nation, 1989). In 1916, 200,000 people signed a petition for peace in Britain (Hochschild, 2011). Of course, the most dramatic event was the strike of workers at the Putilov Arms factory on the 3rd of March, 1917. This spiraled into a general strike in Petrograd, the mutiny of the army, and the abdication of the throne after three hundred years of Romanov rule. The February Revolution in Russia resulted in a Provisional Government. In the months that followed, there were mutinies in France and Germany, general strikes and protests across Europe (Nation, 1989). Following the February revolution, 12,000 Londoners rallied in solidarity with the Russians and activists began organizing soviets. In April 1917, there were mutinies in France, wherein soldiers waved red flags, sang the international, and in one case, soldiers hijacked a train and went back to Paris. French troops were diverted from the front to French cities to quell rebellion. At least 30 French army division created soviets. In Russia, the army fell apart as a million soldiers deserted (Hochschild, 2011). The February revolution strengthened the Bolshevik position within the Zimmerwald left, but it took a second revolution, with the Bolsheviks assumption of power to end the war, as the Provisional Government lacked the political will to exit the war (Nation, 1989).

February Revolution in Petrograd

The new Bolshevik government announced an armistice on December 15, 1918 and sent a delegation to meet the Germans at Brest-Litovsk fortress. The delegation consisted of a woman, soldier, sailor, peasant, worker, and at least two Jewish men, all chosen to represent the new society in Russia. The peasant in the delegation, Stashkov, was pulled from the street randomly, but happened to be a leftist. He had never had wine before the meeting and had the unfortunate habit of calling his fellow delegates “barin” or master. The female delegate, Anastasia Bitsenko, made the German delegates, all from the higher echelons of German society, uneasy, as she had just returned from Siberia after a seven year imprisonment for assassinating the Russian Minister of War. Together, these enemies in terms of class, ideology, and war feasted uneasily in honor of the Russian exit from the conflict (Hochschild, 2011). The terms of this exit were settled by a peace treaty in March 1918, which set the conditions of Russia’s exited the World War I at the cost of territorial concessions to Germany. The armistice between the countries antagonized Russia’s allies (Nation, 1989). Russia’s end to the war meant that Germany could devote an addition half million soldiers to the Western Front. It also resulted in more unrest in the warring countries as activists were emboldened by the Russian revolution and immiserated by the ongoing war. Throughout the war, Germany was blockaded by the Allies, which led to food shortages. German troops were reduced to eating turnips and horse meat and civilians ate dogs and cats. Real wages in Germany declined by half during the war. In turn, German submarines downed over 5,000 allied merchant ships, sending 47,000 tons of meat to the bottom of the sea in the first half of 1917 alone. By 1918, war cost made up 70% of Britain’s GDP. 100,000 workers protested in Manchester against food shortages. In July, rail workers in Britain went on strike. Even the police went on strike for two days, as 12,000 London police walked off the job (Hochschild, 2011).

Lenin had pinned his hopes on revolution spreading across the world. Considering the mutinies, desertions, strikes, and protests in 1918, this does not seem entirely far fetched. British military officials even considered making peace with Germany as a way to contain the threat of the Russian spreading revolution elsewhere. March 1918 saw the founding congress of the Communist Party and the Third International, the final break from the Second International. That same year, there were soviets formed in Germany and a sailor mutiny wherein the sailors raised the red flag. 400,000 Berlin workers went on strike in January 1918 demanding peace, a people’s republic, and workers rights (Hochschild, 2011). Revolutions were attempted in Bavaria, Hungary, Braunschweig, and Berlin. Revolutionaries captured the Kaiser’s palace in Berlin and declared a socialist republic. The Berlin Revolution led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebnecht’s Spartacist League was crushed by Social Democratic Party of Germany in alliance with the German Supreme Command (Nation, 1989). Both revolutionaries were captured, tortured, and executed. The SPD, which had led the member parties of the Second International to side with their belligerent governments, went on to crush other uprisings across Germany, taking its place in the Weimar Republic that followed. Suffice to say, the chasm in the socialist movement that began in 1914 had become an irreparable trench of millions dead and the graves of revolutionaries.

Other Resistance to World War I:

The debates and division within the the socialist movement is certainly an interesting aspect of how war was resisted or failed to be resisted. However, there were many other groups involved in resisting World War One. Another natural source of resistance against World War I might have been anarchists, however, like the socialist movement, the anarchist movement split over how to react to the war. A number of leading anarchists, including Peter Kropotkin, signed the Manifesto of the Sixteen in 1916, which argued that victory over the Central Powers was necessary. The manifesto encouraged anarchists to support the Allies. Kropotkin’s support of the Allies may have been the result of a desire to defend France as a progressive country with a revolutionary tradition. To him, defense of France was a defense of the French Revolution. His approach to the war was pragmatic. He felt that any uprising against the war would be small and easily crushed and that there was a responsibility to defend the country from aggression. He viewed Germany as particularly militaristic. The year that the Manifesto of the Sixteen was written was particularly brutal and saw the beginning of British conscription (Adams and Kinna, 2017).

Not all anarchists were as lost on the issue of war as Kropotkin, for instance, Emma Goldman believed that the state had no right to wage war, drafts were illegimate and coercive, and wars were fought by capitalists at the expense of workers. As the United States moved towards war in 1916, she began using her magazine, Mother Earth, to espouse anti-war ideas. Once the United States entered the war, she launched the No-Conscription League. Subsequently, her magazine was banned and she was arrested on June 15, 1917 along with her comrade, Alexander Berkman (War Resistance, Anti-Militarism, and Deportation, 1917-1919, n.d.). Before she was arrested, Goldman had planned on curtailing anti-conscription speeches, as speakers and attendees of her meetings were harassed by soldiers and police. She was arrested for violating the Selective Service Act, which was passed five days before her arrest. The New York Times covered her arrest and trial, blaming her for two riots that had occurred at her meetings. However, the reports of riots were overblown, as the meetings themselves were peaceful until disrupted by police and soldiers who demanded to see draft registration cards from attendees. Goldman did her best to use the trial as a platform for her ideas, arguing that she didn’t actually tell men not to register for the draft, as according to her anarchist beliefs she supported the right of individuals to make their own choices. She also framed her organizing as part of an American tradition of protest and that democracy should not fear frank debate. Despite her efforts of defending herself and ideas, she was sentenced to the maximum sentence of two years (Kennedy, 1999). Upon serving her sentence at Missouri State Penitentiary, she was deported in December 1919 along with other radicals (War Resistance, Anti-Militarism, and Deportation, 1917-1919, n.d.). Interestingly, Goldman had gained U.S. citizenship when she married Jacob Kershner in 1887, but he had his citizenship revoked in 1909. According to the laws at the time, a wife’s citizenship was contingent on the husband’s. Thus, she was deported based upon the citizenship of her dead husband.

Emma Goldman

European anarcho-syndicalists experienced the same split socialists did, as many came out in support of defensism (Nation, 1989). In the United States, The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) was the target of propaganda from the Wilson administration, which claimed that they were agents of the kaiser who were trying to sabotage the U.S. war effort (Richard, 2012). The IWW is an international union with ties to both the socialist and anarchist movements. While not specifically anacho-syndicalist, the IWW was founded several anarcho-syndicalists such as Lucy Parsons and William Trautman. Because the IWW was trying to organize industries important to the war such as mining, lumber, and rubber, they were targeted with Red Scare tactics. To avoid persecution, the leadership of the IWW refrained from taking a public stance against the war, but members were free to critique the war. This tactic did not work and in September 1917, the Department of Justice raided 48 IWW halls and arrested 165 members, some of whom had not been active for years (Richard, 2012). One of the members who was arrested as Loiuse Olivereau, who at the time was an anarchist IWW secretary. After the raid of an IWW office that she worked at, she went to the Department of Justice to have some of her property returned. Among this property were anti-war fliers, which were a violation of the Espionage Act. Like Goldman, she went to trial and tried to make a political defense. She defended herself and her ideas, arguing that wartime repression and zealous nationalism were not “American” values. She appealed to plurality and nationalism based upon internationalism. In her pamphlets, she had emphasized that men who avoided war were not cowards, but brave for living by their convictions. The media gave little attention to her arguments, instead portraying her as a radical foreigner with dangerous ideas, as Goldman had been portrayed (Kennedy, 1999). IWW members who were not arrested faced vigilante justice from lynch mobs. For instance, Frank Little was disfigured and hung from a railroad trestle in Butte, Montana. In 1919, Wesley Everest was turned over to a mob by prison guards in Centralia, Washington. He had his teeth knocked out with a rifle butt, was lynched three times, and shot. The coroner deemed the death a suicide (Richard, 2012).

In addition to anarchists and socialists, suffragists were another group of activists with an interest in anti-war organizing. In addition to the March 1915 socialist women’s conference, there was a much larger women’s gathering at The Hague in the Netherlands. April 1915 conference brought over 1300 delegates together and was organized by suffragists under the leadership of Jane Addams. It was mostly attended by middle class, professionals though representatives from trade unions and the Hungarian Agrarian union was also in attendance. Like the socialist movement, the suffragist movement was divided between those who supported their governments and those who were anti-war. For instance, the International Suffrage Alliance did not support the Hague conference. Invitations to the conference put forth the position that the war should be ended peacefully and that women should be given the right to vote. Attendance was difficult, since it meant crossing war torn countries or asking for travel documents, which was often denied (Blasco and Magallon, 2015). Attending the conference was itself illegal and all 28 delegates from Germany were arrested upon their return. 17 of the 20 British delegates were refused passage by ship when they tried to leave Britain (Hochschild, 2011). Like the socialist conference, the The Hague conference made a resolution that territorial gains or conquests should not be recognized, though it put the onus of ending the war on neutral countries rather than working people. There was no call for a “war on war” but for mediation, justice, and diplomacy through a Society of Nations. Some of the points of this resolution were adopted by Woodrow Wilson in his 14 Points (Blasco and Magallon, 2015).

The sentiment of The Hague Conference, which focused on progressive internationalism, was echoed by the Women’s Peace Party before the war. In 1914, 1,500 women marched against World War I in New York. Fannie Garrison Villard, Crystal Eastman, and Madeleine Z Doty organized the first all-female peace organization, The Women’s Peace Party. After the end of the war, the Women’s Peace Party became the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (Jensen, 2014). Despite the peaceful orientation, the WPP also promised to defend America from foreign enemies and worked to get Woodrow Wilson elected in 1916. They also framed their peace work as a matter of maternal duty as nurturers. Irrespective of their patriotic politics, they were critiqued for being too nurturing or feminine, as this was viewed by men as having a negative and weakening effect on the public sphere (Kennedy, 1999). At the same time, it seems contradictory that a peace party would support national defense. However, supporting the U.S. war effort might be viewed as an extension of the interest of middle class white women in finding increased state power through voting. The war sharpened the differences between radical and reformist suffragists. The New York State Suffragist Party argued that the Silent Sentinels protest outside of the White House was harassing the government during a time of national stress (Women’s Suffrage and WWI, n.d). Even before the United States entered the war, The National American Woman Suffrage Association wrote a letter to Woodrow Wilson pledging the services of two million suffragists. The letter appeared in the New York Times and promised that the suffragists would remain loyal to the war effort by encouraging women to volunteer in industries left vacant by men at war and collect medical supplies and rations (The History Engine, n.d.). The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) engaged in patriotic volunteering, but they did not abandon organizing for the vote. NAWSA’s president, Carrie Chapman Catt was a pacifist, but supported the war effort by promoting Liberty Loans, Red Cross drives, and War Savings Stamps. Around the country, suffragists supported the war effort by planting victory gardens, food conservation, Red Cross and volunteering. The National Women’s Party took a more radical approach, and during the war 200 of them picketed the White House and were arrested, went on hunger strikes, and were forcibly fed. In the United States, women finally won the right to vote in 1920, but this mostly impacted white women as Native American women were not U.S. citizens until 1924 and first generation Asian women were not granted the right to vote until after World War II (Jensen, 2014).

Silent Sentinels who protested outside the White House during WWI

The divide in the suffragist movement is illustrated in the Pankhurst family. Sylvia Pankhurst, was a British suffragist who with her mother Emmaline and sisters, Christabel and Adela, founded the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) (Miles and McGregor, 1993). Emmaline Pankhurst, the matriarch of the family, became engaged in politics after working with poor women to collect data on illegitimate births. She noted that many of these births were caused by rape and also took issue with the fact that female teachers in Manchester made less than their male counterparts. Thus, sexual assault and the wage gap have a long been observed as social problems by feminists. The WPSU did not allow male members, though they infiltrated meetings of the Liberal Party to demand voting rights. The WSPU eventually split over the issue of whether or not they should support candidates. Emmaline Pankhurst was against this, as all of the candidates at the time were male. Charlotte Despards, a novelist, charitable organizer, Poor Law Board member, and proponent of Indian and Irish independence, was for supporting candidates, as she was a supporter of the Independent Labor Party. Despards went on to found the Women’s Freedom League (Hochschild, 2011). Again, male membership and supporting male candidates are still issues that modern feminist groups consider.

The WSPU was the most radical of the British suffragist groups and it engaged in arson, window breaking, and bomb attacks (Miles and McGregor, 1993). The WSPU burned the orchid house at Kew Gardens, smashed a jewel case at the Tower of London, burned a church, and carved out “No Votes, No Golf” on a golf green (Hochschild, 2011). Due to these activities, suffragists were imprisoned and Sylvia herself was arrested nine times between 1913 and 1914. To protest imprisonment, they went on hunger strikes and had to be forcibly fed. Sylvia was expelled from the WSPU for socialist beliefs and founded the East London Federation of Suffragists. Despite their extreme tactics, Emmaline and Christabel became less radical at the outbreak of World War I and ceased their radical tactics, instead supporting the war and handing out white feathers to shame men to who didn’t enlist to fight (Miles and McGregor, 1993). The eldest sister, Christabel traveled to the United States to drum up support for the war. Most British suffragists supported the war effort, which may seem surprising as many had earlier denounced war, gender essentializing it as a masculine endeavor. This turn towards national defense over voting rights was strategic, as it did offer mainstream legitimacy to suffragists who had otherwise been arrested and persecuted. Even the author Rudyard Kipling had expressed concern that the women’s suffrage movement weakened Britain, making it less prepared for war. The WSPU organized a march of 60,000 women, though not against war. The march was to encourage women to buy shells. Perhaps due to their compliance in the war and part because the Russian revolution had granted universal suffrage, women were granted the right to vote in Britain in 1919 (Hochschild, 2011).

As for Sylvia, one of the few anti-war suffragists, she organized ELFS to set of free clinics to mothers and children, a free day care, a Cost Price restaurant, and a toy factory for fundraising. She supported strikes against conscription, the Defense of the Realm Act, protested the execution of James Connolly, and her group was the only British suffragist organization which continued to organize for the vote during the war (Miles and McGregor, 1993). She had even suggested that an anti-war march of 1,000 women should occur in the no man’s land between enemy lines. Throughout the war, she documented the suffering of women, noting that women were forced out of hospital beds to make room for soldiers or struggle to survive on the military pay of their husbands. The wives of deserters received no pension from the government and women were subjected to curfews to avoid cheating and faced imprisonment if they had a venereal disease and had sex with a soldier (Hochschild, 2011).

Sylvia Pankhurst

In 1916, the organization changed its name to the Workers Suffrage Federation and in 1918 to the Workers Socialist Federation. It was the first British organization to affiliate with the Third International and she herself articulated that while women could win the vote under capitalism, they could achieve liberation. She was arrested for sedition in 1920 for urging British sailors to mutiny over poor conditions and for dock workers to resist loading arms to be used by Russian counterrevolutionaries. While in prison, the Workers Socialist Federation joined the Communist Party. She never joined the Communist Party herself and was critical of the New Economic Program (Miles and McGregor, 1993). Sylvia never joined the party, but paid a visit to the Soviet Union, which impressed her. She continued her activism throughout her life, warning about the rise of fascism and drawing attention to Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia. She eventually moved to Ethiopia, where she died at the age of 74.

Conclusion:

Resistance to World War I in many ways seems like a series of stunning betrayals. The socialists, which had the power to stop the war, sided with their national governments at the cost of millions of lives. The hardships of war created the conditions for unrest in many countries, but it was only in Russia where revolution was successful (at a high cost and with lasting consequences to the shape the new society). Suffragists, like socialists, sided with their national governments. This Faustian deal, in some ways, secured the right to vote. Today, women can vote to send women to kill other women in war, just as socialists voted for the money to arm workers to fight other workers. Anarchists were also fractured by the war, when this group seemed the most ideologically unlikely to side with government war mongering! At the same time, activists of all of these groups made hard choices. Anti-war socialists found themselves unable to organize workers early in the war due to their small numbers and the swell of nationalism and prejudices. Any activist organizing against the war faced imprisonment in beligerant countries, and Emma Goldman, Clara Zetkin, and Rosa Luxemburg among many more were arrested. Some activists faced mob justice and death. Still, there are some lessons to be drawn from all of this. A major lesson is the importance of unwavering internationalism. Another lesson is to take a long, principled view of power. Suffragists abandoned their organizing in the interest of legitimacy and national power. In doing so, they made powerful allies, but they also took their place in the state apparatus that oppresses of women. So too, socialists, who enjoyed popularity and a share of state power, crushed other socialists and supported the violent, senseless slaughter of workers to maintain their place in capitalism. Activists should always stand against imperialism and in solidarity with all of the oppressed people of the world. Doing this may mean standing in the minority or at the margins of history making, but it may also mean keeping alive the idea that a better world is possible and the ideas with the power to build movements that make this happen.

The Gender Question: Unpacking

My Pronouns

H. Bradford

10/21/18

Wednesday October 17th was the first International Gender Pronouns Day. The goal of the day is to raise awareness of gender pronouns, including referring to people by their preferred pronouns and normalizing asking about the pronouns. In activist circles, this is increasingly becoming commonplace. Recently, both of my workplaces asked me for my preferred gender pronouns. But, I can remember just a few years ago when I was asked for the first time to publicly announce my pronouns. This is a reflection of how I felt and my own gender journey.

The first meeting that I was asked to use my preferred gender pronouns caught me off guard. I felt afraid and unsure of what to say. I knew what the expected answer was…she/her/hers….and I felt afraid to say anything but the pronouns that would match my outward appearance. I didn’t answer at all. Meeting after meeting, I didn’t answer. I dreaded when it was my turn to share. I would simply say my name and something else (for instance what group I was in or why I was there), avoiding the question or trying to bury the question in other information. Only a few times was I called out. “Oh, you forgot to share your pronouns!” I wanted the question to go away. It seemed like some hokey, liberal trend to be inclusive- but really, it felt like an interrogation into the walled up parts of myself. I have wrestled with gender identity, but came to no conclusions or worse, no plan of action. Thus, I have slid through life avoiding the question and relegating it to some condemned, musty, walled off part of myself that could be attended to when I had the time, courage, or emotional safety. The “gender question” asked at activist meetings forced it out of the dark corner that I had been avoiding. I resented that. No one shines a light in my haunted house!

Mn State Fair Haunted House

For some context, I have felt alienated by my femaleness. It started sometime around the 5th grade. I didn’t want to grow up to be female…or the “w” word. I didn’t want breasts or a period. I didn’t want curves or for people to see me as a woman. I didn’t want to become…such an alien thing. It is a feeling that has hung around. I could provide more details or examples, as often creating a narrative of lifelong questioning is necessary for legitimacy. But, I don’t care to and legitimacy does not have to be rooted in history and long stories. In any event, despite feeling un-female, I wondered what alternative existed for me. What else could I be and how could I become it? Despite these feelings, I have generally presented myself in a feminine way (to some degree), with makeup, shaved body, and long hair. Thus, to question or feel disgusted by and alien from my body and biological/social lot seemed disingenuous. Worse, when I have talked to some people close to me over the years, the reactions have been that I must be mentally ill or just trying to be trendy….because gender dysphoria is cool. This left me feeling a bit lost and defeated. By my 30s I tried not to think too deeply about it. That is…until that pesky question kept coming up!

I started to test out answers. Mostly, when it came up, I said I go by she/her/hers and they/them/theirs. No one cared. The question moved on to the next person. This was nice and gave me more confidence. No one stopped the whole thing and said, “Wait! You are NOT they, them, theirs…. you are just trying to be trendy here! Call the gender police.” Or, “They, them, theirs is for MORE androgynous looking people. Clearly you wear makeup and have long hair. You are not constructing gender properly.” In the few instances where I felt that I needed to give an explanation, I said that I was gender questioning. By cautiously answering…but being met with zero reaction or questioning, I began to feel more comfortable. These questions felt invasive and loaded at first, but it turned out it was not an inquisition.

What am I? I feel weird calling myself a woman. It just seemed so…not me. It seems like a special title reserved for some other people. I didn’t ask for this body. There are parts of it I would be happy to be rid of. At the same time, I think she/her/hers is appropriate for me. Despite how I might feel about myself, the world sees me as female. I am treated like a woman. Each time I fear for my safety or am treated as “less than” a man, I am living a female experience in a female body (I don’t mean this to reify biological gender, but as a shared experience of oppression). I feel safer in female spaces than in spaces dominated by men and I feel like I do not behave or present in a fashion that is gender queer enough for trans or non-binary spaces. I present myself in a “feminine” way. I have been subjected to and subjugated by female gender norms. I fear aging. I fear becoming too ugly or too fat. My presentation of self is still very much governed by patriarchal gender norms for women. At the same time, gender is socially constructed. There is no feminine. Long hair and makeup can be masculine, androgynous, feminine, or really anything or nothing at all. Despite the arbitrary nature of these rules, my presentation has social meaning that is associated with femaleness. I could reject this, but there is no real way to reject this as reconstructing gender usually hinges upon gender tropes. Binary gender is such a part of our cognitive landscape that it is hard to escape. Inevitably, it depends upon rejecting what is viewed as masculine, feminine, mixing up these characteristics, or inventing something androgynous (which is often stereotyped as thin and skewed towards masculine). She/her/hers is also useful in showing solidarity with women. I am a feminist. Maybe I don’t always feel like a woman, but I live in this world perceived and treated as one. I experience oppression as a woman and she/her/hers can be useful gender shorthand for these experiences and my solidarity with those who also experience this.

Although I am she/her/hers….I am also not these things. It feels like gender is Schroedinger’s cat, which both IS and ISN’T. Both things exist in the box that is myself. I am female in body and experience, but also not these things, both because there is no female body and universal female experience and because I feel alien from the female parts of me (whatever those may be). This is hard to explain. To address the first aspect of my non-femaleness, well, femaleness does not really exist. What is female? Breasts, certain hormones, certain chromosomes, vaginas, or other biological characteristics? Some females have some of these characteristics and not others, have all of these to varying degrees, or have some of these in some parts of life and not in others. I have some biological markers of being female, but I do not necessarily want them, and being female is more than just biological rules and boundaries (which are themselves socially determined). I would be happy to not have breasts, for instance. I have always hated them. I am actually really happy that mine are small, since I really don’t want these female associated appendages hanging off my body. They serve no purpose in my life. I have no intention of breast feeding, which seems like a body horror, nor enjoy their utility in sexual attraction. Yes, I called it a body horror. I feel that chest feeding can be wonderful and nourishing for OTHERS who are not alienated by their bodies, but to me existing in this body, the very thought of it seems like a torturous humiliation. In this sense, and others that I won’t share, I am very much not a woman.

Femaleness is also related to gender roles, expected behaviors, and social position. Where do I fit in to that? Sure, I think that I am “feminine”, but I think that this is one facet of who I am and more or less just a part of the full constellation of human traits that everyone shares to varying degrees. I am not “feminine” in some ways, in that I don’t necessarily follow female gender roles. I am not particularly nurturing, not at all motherly or maternal, am emotionally reserved, not much for traditional roles of care giving and cleaning, independent and self-reliant, not romantic, generally more rational and scientific than spiritual or emotional, etc. Once again, these are characteristics that get divied up between masculine and feminine, but are not inherently either. Still, I think that bodily, emotionally, and socially, I have traits that I feel are masculine, feminine, and androgynous. I don’t feel a close affinity with my femaleness, but I don’t entirely reject it either. Thus, I really like they, them, their as gender pronouns. I also like to go by H. as well as Heather, since I think it represents my non-binary self. Heather is very feminine in our society. I used to hate my name because of it. However, I am trying to accept that Heather is just a plant. It is a flower that grows in rocky, boggy conditions- with no innate femininity, masculinity, or androgyny. The sound of the word Heather is not feminine, as people in other countries have similar sounding names which are pegged as masculine- such as Hadir in Arabic speaking countries. I can be Heather and not necessarily be feminine. But, I do enjoy when friends call me H.

Gender is complicated. I don’t have the answers. I consider myself gender questioning because I haven’t arrived at my final destination. I don’t know that I will. There may be times in my life that I embrace my femaleness more. Other times, it may be a source of pain and humiliation. I haven’t always enjoyed getting asked what my pronouns are, but at the very least, I am starting to feel more confident. At this point, I feel confident enough to say that yes, there is a they, them, their part of myself. It doesn’t matter if I don’t look or behave in a non-binary way or reject gender enough. I don’t need to be legitimate in anyone else’s eyes. It is gender that is illegitimate, not me. Even if my feelings ARE the result of being trendy or mentally ill, why stigmatize either? Traditional concepts of gender (and sex) benefit no one but those at the top of our patriarchal, capitalist economic system. As my life progresses, perhaps I will feel bolder and ask to be H. or they, them, their more often. Perhaps not. For now, this is where I am at. Thanks for asking.

Anxious Adventuring: Nationalist Tour Guide

H. Bradford

10/8/18

While visiting Macedonia I decided to go on a day tour to Lake Ohrid. It would have been far cheaper to take a public bus, but I had some worries that perhaps the bus would be overbooked or that I would miss the bus back to Skopje. To make things less stressful, I booked a day tour to Lake Ohrid. Of course, Macedonia does not have an expansive tourist industry, so most day tours are private tours. Private tours are expensive, but they make it easier to learn about different historical sights than I would have learned on my own. Another downside, besides price, is that it can be socially awkward. After all, it means that the guide is your only company ALL day long. That is a lot of social pressure on both parties. Many things could go wrong. What if the guide is weird? What if the guide makes me feel unsafe? What if we simply don’t get along? I don’t often do private tours because of the price and the social component. But, it seemed easier than making a mistake using the bus system in an unfamiliar country for a several hour bus ride that at least online was said to be often sold out… so I booked a guide.

Beautiful Lake Ohrid…

I waited anxiously at my hostel for the guide to arrive. When he arrived, I felt disappointed that it was a man, since it always feels safer to be alone with women. I wasn’t entirely alone though, since he had a driver with him. It made me feel tense, as these two men were to be my company for the day. Oh well. The guide was nice enough…and handed me some brochures about various Macedonian tourist attractions. He gave me an overview of how the day would go and we set off towards our first stop, the mouth of the Vardar river. Along the way, he shared his knowledge of Macedonia, which he was very passionate and knowledgeable about. Based upon his particular slant on the information he shared, it became clear that he was….very nationalist.

First stop…Vardar River (one of many photos of me that day…)

The guide, who I will call “A.” strongly believed that Macedonia was indeed the homeland of Alexander the Great and that the people of Macedonia, while Slavs, had actually mixed with the ancient Macedonian population. He substantiated this belief with stories of how some villages continue to conduct group weddings. He believed that group weddings were a custom modeled after Alexander the Great’s mass wedding held in Susa wherein marriages were arranged between Alexander and his officers and Persian noblewomen. This was an interesting theory, though there are many reasons to hold collective weddings (for instance, to save time and to share costs). He was a strong advocate for a boycott of the referendum, as he felt that if it passed, Greece would have control over street names, statues, books, school curriculum, stadiums, or even outlaw the use of the name Alexander as a given name. I didn’t quite understand why the referendum would be boycotted rather than simply “vote NO.” Since the failure of the referendum, I now understand that voter turnout needed to be at least 50% for it to be valid. To A., the very idea that the matter would be voted upon was insulting. He felt deeply that not only were Macedonians the inheritors of Alexander the Great’s legacy, Greece had no business telling Macedonia what to do. This was not framed as an anti-Nato or anti-EU sentiment. A. also made no indication that he had a pro-Russian political orientation. His position was, however, a vehemently anti-Greek position. He spoke about the oppression of Slavic people in Greek Macedonia and believed that the majority of this population still spoke Macedonian (it is unknown how many speakers there are, but in 1951 it was 40,000). I nodded along to his assertions, but didn’t know what to say when he went on a tirade about how Alexander the Great was not bisexual or gay and this was a myth propagated by Hollywood. Nationalism, while it has reasonable aspects (yes, Macedonia should have the autonomy to determine its own name and interpretation of history) can also be deeply intolerant, angry, masculine, and homophobic… at least that is the brand of nationalism that I experienced with A.

For my part, I mostly played dumb and asked questions, since that is often the safest way to act out the role of a non-threatening female around angry men. In any event, I did not want to risk upsetting the person responsible for my safety and transportation. The day had many awkward moments, as A. had a very pushy personality. For instance, he insisted that he needed to take my photo at every stop we made. At churches, rivers, lakes, statues, etc. I politely told him many times that I was content to have just a few photos of myself, but he pushed to take my photo at every stop, harassing me with compliments about how I looked. This was uncomfortable, but I lacked any power in the situation to escape this barrage of photos. I did my best to make polite excuses not to take more photos of myself (usually I have the opposite problem that as a solo traveler I have to ask a stranger for a photo or use the self-timer on my camera). This was to no avail and a familiar experience. Consent and boundaries are only dimly understood among most people and part of living and traveling in this world is experiencing situations where these are violated, ignored, or pushed. Likewise, A. was very devoutly Orthodox. When we visited two monasteries, he insisted that I drink the water. I didn’t want to drink the water, since I didn’t trust that it was not going to make me sick (untreated water contains unfamiliar bacteria that he might be used to, but I could get sick from). He pushed me to drink the water, which he asserted was the purest water in the world. I took a small sip to appease him and later found myself pretending to drink the water by cupping it in my hand, putting it to my mouth, but letting it slip through my fingers. When asked about my religious beliefs, I felt it was best to lie- as he was extremely devout in his Orthodoxy. I told him I was Protestant. I don’t think I have ever lied about my atheism. At one point, he told me to light the candles at the monastery. I am not Orthodox, so I felt uncomfortable, but he was so adamant about it, I lit the candle. Then, he quizzed me about what it meant. I had no idea. He said that the candles are lit because of the sins in the world. I said something awkward about darkness and suffering, then moved on to ponder the miraculous dripping bone marrow of John the Baptist.

Things became less socially intense when we arrived at Lake Ohrid. I opted to spent some time alone there and enjoyed blissful social isolation as I strolled around the lake looking for birds and taking in the scenery. At Lake Ohrid, the guide and I parted ways. I appreciate that he was very candid about his political beliefs and I felt that it had been a unique opportunity to speak with someone with strong nationalist views. On the other hand, I was relieved to no longer feel pressured for photographs or to sample water or any other thing that had made me feel uncomfortable during the day. I survived! The ride back to Skopje was less stressful. I had an enjoyable conversation with the more politically moderate driver who was pro-EU and pro-NATO. He was pessimistic about Macedonia’s future and largely indifferent to Greek’s demands, since Macedonia was too weak to resist it and Alexander the Great was not worth celebrating anyway. The driver felt that Macedonia was a unimportant, doomed nation (so he lacked A.’s zealous confidence in Macedonia’s purpose and history). It was interesting to hear this perspective, even if it came across as a dreary pro-Western defeatism. Despite the polar opposite views on Macedonia’s history, both men agreed upon the horrible prospect of “Greater Albania.” When I spoke to a very progressive guide the following day, she also feared Greater Albania. So, oddly, that was the tie that bound the political spectrum- fear of Albanian territorial, economic, and population expansion. I am not sure what to make of that…

My guides often pointed out whenever they saw an Albanian flag…

I think it is both rude and privileged to put down my guide, as he was extremely hard working and passionate about his job. In a group setting, I probably would have felt far less uncomfortable and anxious. He was uncomfortably pushy in some regards and it was emotionally exhausting to try to balance politeness (for safety and a smooth day) and resistance (not wanting to drink unknown water, for instance). I have had experiences like this before while traveling and living, which I have navigated differently depending upon my own perceived power in the situation (which is often little). In any event, as trying as the day felt at some points, it was an opportunity to see and hear nationalism first hand. Despite my support of Macedonian self-determination, on a personal level, nationalism feels smothering, assertive, and intolerant.

I am fairly certain that this AP photo by Thanassis Stavrakis of a Macedonian nationalist is a picture of my tour guide….

What’s in a Name? Macedonia’s Referendum

H. Bradford

10/7/18

I traveled to Macedonia this past September as a part of a three week trip that took me to several countries. The trip occurred just ahead of Macedonia’s September 30th referendum to change the country’s name from Republic of Macedonia (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) to North Macedonia (among other things). It was an interesting time to visit the country, since there were activists campaigning for a boycott of the referendum. Some of them handed out fliers and others appeared to maintain an encampment near Park Warrior Woman. On the surface, the referendum seems simple enough, as it asked whether or not Macedonians were in favor of NATO and EU membership by accepting an agreement with Greece. The Prespa Agreement with Greece entails a name change, but also means that the constitution would have to acknowledge that Macedonians are not related to ancient Macedonians and there would have to be Greek review of maps and textbooks to make certain that that Macedonia did not claim Hellenistic heritage or Greek territory. While I didn’t have the opportunity to speak to many Macedonians on the issue, I did speak to three of them, each of whom had different opinions on the vote. I also read several books on Macedonian history before the trip, which at least provided some context to the debate. My opinion is informed by these experiences.

Macedonia was one of the six republics of Yugoslavia and among them it was the poorest, with an economy centered upon agriculture. Within Yugoslavia, Macedonian national identity was promoted through the development of film, theater, music, art, language, etc. Nationalism was cultivated in such a way as not to promote independence from Yugoslavia or overt territorial ambitions against Greece or Bulgaria in the interest of uniting Macedonians. The collapse of Yugoslavia in 1991 presented an economic and identity crisis. In forging a new identity, Macedonia certainly has unique history and language to draw from, as the country is full of ancient Christian churches and monasteries and Macedonian language influenced St. Cyril’s Glagolitic script, the first Slavic alphabet. Language and orthodoxy are two components of Macedonian national identity, and the Macedonian Orthodox church declared itself autocephalus in 1967. However, its autonomy is not recognized by the rest of Eastern Orthodoxy. While these are important parts of Macedonian nationalism, it seems that a great deal of Macedonian nationalism today draws from the ancient history of Alexander the Great, which Greece takes issue with. And…Macedonia draws from this history to the extreme. A visit to Skopje feels like a tour of an Alexander the Great theme park, with enormous statues of Alexander the Great, Phillip II, Alex’s mother Olympia, and Greek style buildings.

Most scholars find little continuity between the Macedonia of Alexander the Great and modern Republic of Macedonia. Alexander the Great was believed to have been born in Pella, in modern Greek Macedonia in 356 BC. Of course, the division between Greek Macedonia and Republic of Macedonia is a construct of the Ottoman empire, nationalist struggles that aided the empire’s collapse, and borders drawn from the Balkan wars of the early 1900s. In any event, the Macedonia of Alexander the Great or Phillip II appears to mostly cover Greek Macedonia, with parts of modern day Republic of Macedonia, Albania, and Bulgaria. I have seen maps that extend this border further north as far as half way up Republic of Macedonia, but this doesn’t really matter as “Macedonia” as a place has encompassed different areas in different times. The Macedonians today are Slavic people, who settled in the region in the 6th century, nearly 600 years after the death of Alexander the Great. Therefore, Greeks argue that Republic of Macedonia has appropriated their history. On the other hand, Alex, a Macedonian I spoke to, believed that Slavic people mixed with the Macedonian population, preserving some of their customs and history. Macedonia would have experienced invasion from Huns, Visgoths, Vandals, as well as Roman rule prior to Slavs entering the scene. History is contentious and while Republic of Macedonia is unlikely to be the geographic and cultural inheritor of Alexander the Great’s legacy, all nations are build upon myths and borrowings.

All nations are human constructions. After all, the Earth, as seen from space, does not have neat little lines delineating borders or handy name tags for rivers, countries, mountains, etc. These are things that we have named and given meaning to. In the case of nation states, this is a fairly recent phenomenon of unifying peoples, cultures, languages, and geographical spaces into recognized political units. This didn’t happen neatly, accidentally, or uniformly. Africa consists of nations carved out and patched together by European colonizers. The United States, as a nation, was built by genocide, warfare, slavery, colonization, civil war, imperialism, and also by accompanying and supporting mythologies of manifest destiny, exceptionalism, moral justification, pluralism, and democracy. And, like much of the West, part of our national mythology draws from Ancient Greece. We appropriate Greek architecture, as many of our government buildings and statues have Greek themes and columns. Lighthouses, juries, theater, democracy, our alphabet, the Olympics, math, science, philosophy, art, libraries, etc. are parts of ancient Greek culture that have been widely appropriated by the West. We created movies and television shows based upon Greek mythology which are often inaccurate or re-imagined for mass audiences. Yet, Greece does not take issue with all of these borrowings from their history, even when many are likewise not accurate reconstructions of myths, ideas about democracy, architectural styles, etc. Why Macedonia? Why Alexander the Great?

A very Greek looking Museum of Archaeology in Skopje…

From a practical standpoint, borrowing from Ancient Greece is so commonplace that much of it probably happens without thought or notice. On the other hand, Greece does not have the means to threaten the United States or most of Europe even if they were to misappropriate ancient Greek history. For example, there is a replica of the Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee, which, of course, is even more outrageously ahistorical than any Macedonian claim to Alexander the Great. Suppose Greece took issue with this. The United States has the largest GDP in the world, whereas Greece is around 50th. While Greece spends over 2.3% of its GDP on military (for which it was praised by Trump), this spending (about 9.3 billion dollars) is dwarfed by the $590 billion spent by the United States on defense each year. Greece has little economic, political, or military power to challenge most other members of NATO or the EU for any misuse of Greek culture or history. At the same time, Greece is in a much more powerful position than Macedonia. Although Macedonia’s government has vowed to increase military spending as it seeks NATO membership, as of 2017 military spending was less than 1% of the GDP at just under 110 million dollars. In terms of 2015 GDP, Macedonia was the sixth poorest country in Europe, after Moldova, Ukraine, Kosovo, Albania, and Bosnia Herzegovina and a 27% unemployment rate. Greece’s unemployment rate was also around 25% in 2015 and the population has suffered austerity measures and shaky EU membership in the face of a debt crisis that was spurred by the larger global financial crisis of 2008. Nevertheless, Greece has more political and economic power than Macedonia for a number of reasons including its long established NATO membership (since 1951), EU membership (a part of predecessor organization the European Community since 1981), longer history as an independent country (Macedonia became an independent country in 1991 compared to Greece’s independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1829), larger population and area (population of 10 million versus 2 million in Macedonia), larger and better equipped military, etc. In short, Greece is much more powerful than Macedonia and therefore far more able to enforce its claims to culture, history, and national identity.

Phillip II statue in Skopje…with scenes of Alexander the Great’s life

Since Macedonia’s 1991 independence, Greece has exerted its relative power to thwart Macedonia’s existence as….Macedonia. In the 1990s, Greece imposed an economic embargo against Macedonia and blocked its UN membership. In 2008, Greece vetoed Macedonia’s NATO membership and in 2009, its bid for EU membership. In 1993, Macedonia agreed to the official name of Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in exchange for UN membership and in 1995, agreed to change the flag by removing the Vergina Sun used as the royal symbol of ancient Macedonia (Gjukovikj, 2018). This past summer, Greek and Macedonian governments sought to come to an agreement which would pave the way for Macedonia’s NATO membership. This agreement entailed a name change to North Macedonia, renouncing any claim to ancient Macedonia history and Greek territory, removal of all public uses of the Vergina sun, recognition of Greece’s territorial integrity (i.e. no territorial claims to Greek Macedonia), committee oversight of textbooks and historical materials, and various articles more generally related to trade, defense, crime, treaty enforcement, etc. The Prespa agreement can be read here: https://www.thenationalherald.com/204203/the-full-text-of-greece-fyrom-agreement-pdf/

I have a soft spot for Macedonia, as it very much seems like the underdog in this situation. It is impossible to imagine an outside country setting the terms of how the United States can interpret its history or what symbols we can use on our flag or in our public spaces. It seems absurd that Macedonia cannot be Macedonia….as if national identity is some sacred truth! Certainly cultural appropriation is not a small matter, but generally the injustice stems from the powerful appropriating the history and culture of the oppressed. In this case, Macedonia is the smaller power with less leverage to define itself or maintain an autonomous existence. While Macedonians certainly appropriate Hellenistic culture to nationalist ends, Greece historically has extinguished and denied Slavic culture in Greek Macedonia. After Macedonia was divided by Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria in 1913, Greece replaced Slavic geographical and family names in Greek Macedonia with Greek ones and designated the Macedonian population “Bulgarians.” In 1936, Macedonian language was outlawed in Greece and many Macedonians, who often were also leftists, either fled the country or faced political repression. In 1951, 40,000 people in Northern Greece still considered themselves Slavophiles despite the decades of repression. No census of Slavic speakers has been conducted since (Karadis, 1994). As recent as 1994, Human Rights Watch called upon Greece to stop harassment of Slavic speakers and in 1998, the European Court of Human Rights called upon Greece to allow its people free association by granting permission for the formation of Slavic cultural associations (Karatsareas, n.d.). Greece many not formally recognize what remains of its aging Slavic speaking population, but the assertion of territorial integrity in the Prespa agreement at some level admits that the 1913 borders (which included Greek Macedonia) is contentious. Why? Macedonia lacks the military, political, or economic means to challenge Greece’s borders and the Slavic population of Greece Macedonia has been Hellenized to the degree that there is little threat of an independence/unification movement. It seems that rather than a real Macedonian threat to Greece’s national integrity, this aspect of the agreement is meant to establish that Greece has “won” at history or any debate to the nature of Greece Macedonia’s geographic or cultural makeup is over.

Unfortunately, Macedonia’s right to be Macedonia (i.e. its right to self-determination), is not supported in the West. While I was visiting Macedonia, Angela Merkel came to Skopje in support of voting yes in the referendum. NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg and Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz also visited Skopje that week. The U.S state department, former president George W. Bush, U.S. secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, and President Trump each encouraged Macedonians to vote yes. In fact, $8 million was approved by congress to fund a yes vote (Tisdale, 2018). I imagine that to most people, Macedonia’s path to EU and NATO membership is viewed positively, as becoming closer to the West is blithely viewed as a way to become more prosperous, progressive, globally integrated, or any number of positive things. But, at what cost? In this case, the immediate cost is self-determination on even the most basic issue of maintaining the autonomy to choose by what name the country calls itself! Increased military spending is another expected cost. Of course, this is also part of a larger issue, since the referendum in Macedonia has been framed by Western media as primarily a naming issue! No big deal, right? What is the difference between Macedonia and North Macedonia? But, this ignores the other aspects of the Prespa Agreement, including the auditing of text books and maps. This framing also ignores the assumption that joining the EU and NATO are positive things. It is really positive and progressive to join the West by increasing military spending or fighting in NATO’s conflicts? In any event, while the Yes vote won, voter turnout was too low to validate the results (only 36% voter turnout). For now, the matter remains at an impasse as the referendum failed.

Macedonia is still a fairly new nation with tremendous challenges ahead. Navigating these challenges are nearly impossible. Integration with the West almost certainly means compromising aspects of national identity in favor of an identity which is less threatening to Greece. As a matter of self-determination, I believe that Macedonians should have the right to interpret their history as they please, even if it does not align with other histories. The world is full of cities founded and named after Alexander the Great, which Greece does not take particular interest in. There are statues of Alexander the Great in Scotland, Argentina, Germany, France, and Egypt to name a few places. The Albanian military commander “Skanderbeg” was nicknamed after Alexander the Great. I think that it is entirely possible for both countries to coexist while allowing for Macedonia to draw inspiration from this history. At the same time, a Macedonian driver that I met made the excellent point that maybe Alexander the Great is not the best symbol for the nation, considering that his image and history celebrate warfare and conquest. I would add that Macedonia is made up of many people, including Albanians, Roma, Turks, Vlachs, Serbians, Torbesh, and others. Alexander the Great may not represent all of these people. I think that is a matter for the people of Macedonia to decide and question. No one in Macedonia benefits from costly statues and buildings when the population suffers from poverty and unemployment. For instance, the “Warrior on Horse” statue (which is meant to depict Alexander the Great) cost over $13 million. The structures built in Skopje between 2010-2014 cost over $700 million. As a tourist, it is certainly bizarre and fascinating to stroll around the endless monuments, but these have a human cost in terms of money that could have been spent on social programs and labor power that went into their construction. Therefore, the right to Alexander the Great should not be idealized, but should be allowed as a matter of national autonomy. Likewise, nationalism can be ugly and is often misused to cow a populace into submission and can foster social division. But, the experience of realizing national autonomy can be unify and mobilize a people towards progressive interests. In the end, that is why I support allowing Macedonia to be Macedonia.